Gods And Monsters
by Yggdrisil75
Summary: "If you allow the status quo to persist, you can't expect to improve performance, and you can't expect to win." When given the choice between complacency or struggle, most choose the easy way out. Not Ash Ketchum. Choosing a life of difficulty, follow him as he becomes an unstoppable force against an unsuspecting world.
1. Chapter 1

**Authors Note: This is my first story, **_**ever, **_**So I would like to go ahead and thank all you wonderful people who are willing to give this story a shot. That being said let's clear up a few things.**

**One: First and foremost, this will be an adventure/ journey story. I'm more interested in seeing Ash going up against the odds and winning, than I am seeing him fight Team Rocket. This means I will make all the Gym Leaders and adversaries significantly harder than displayed in the game/show. While this story will feature Team Rocket, they will never be at the forefront of my story. **

**Two: This story will feature a smart and practical Ash Ketchum. He will NOT have psychic/ aura powers. I think that's ridiculous. **

**Three: The Pokemon featured are personal favorites. They won't all align with what he's caught in the show, but some will be featured. I will try to include fan-favorites, although I can't promise they will all be on his team.**

**Four: Ash won't be catching Mythical or Legendaries. There's plenty of other stories where he does that**

**This chapter clocked in around 8k words, which is the most I've ever written. So, any reviews or criticism is much appreciated (even flaming if you're so inclined). I have planned for this story to go through the Indigo League.**

**Thank you for giving this story a try and enjoy the first chapter.**

As the sun rose to greet the haven of Pallet Town with its sunlight and warmth, an elderly man prepared his morning cup of coffee while enjoying the view his large bay windows afforded him. He could see the stirring and rumbling of movement begin as the sunlight began to creep over his domain. Pokemon of different species woke up to greet the day. The lakes slowly sprang to life as the water types began to disturb the surface with their movements. All this only served to bring a smile onto the old man's face.

"This will never get old "he whispered to himself.

As the coffee was slowly drained from its mug, so too did the man begin his preparations for the big day ahead of him. Getting out several pots, pans, and a variety of ingredients the man began to cook quite a large amount of breakfast food. Humming to himself as he cooked, he made sure to make enough food for his three aides, his grandson and the mother of a young man he had come to think of as family. Just as he was finishing everything up, he heard a door open and a bell chime, indicating that someone had entered the building.

"Good Morning Professor Oak." He heard from a sweet soft-spoken voice. As he turned around, a young lady who had brunette hair, wore glasses while sporting a lab coat rounded the corner. She stopped in the doorway to smell the aroma of delicious eggs and bacon, as well as some other delicacy's

"Wow all of this looks absolutely fantastic!" exclaimed the young lady as she stepped into the kitchen.

"Oh, it's no big deal Emma" chuckled the Professor," Especially not with the long hours all of you have put in to make this day go as smoothly as possible. Please go ahead and serve yourself" Oak gestured towards the food. "Plates are in the cabinets and silverware in the drawers. Alexander and Demitri are on their way, running late as usual."

Emma merely smiled and began to load her plate.

"So, do you have any idea who's going to pick which starter Professor?" asked Emma." Afterall it's been years you've sponsored three kids, let alone three kids from the same town."

"Hmm while I'm fairly certain I can guess who's going to pick what, I'm not going to divulge that information just yet, I do have some money on this after all!"

"Professor!" Exclaimed Emma in a scandalous, yet playful tone. "Betting on your own grandson, what would he say if he found out."

Oak flashed her a toothy grin "He'd probably ask for a piece of the action. Afterall, how often in life do you have a run at a sure thing?"

Emma covered her mouth with her hand, trying to keep the snorting to a minimum. When she finally stopped laughing, she wiped a tear from her eye.

"You're incorrigible Professor" she said while sporting a huge grin.

"One does one's best" he responded with a small smile that graced his face. "Though I must give a thanks to you guys for acquiring that fourth Pokemon for us. If you had been unable to, I might have had to take Ash to Viridian in order to get his starter.

"Oh, it was no problem at all Professor." responded Emma "If there's anyone who deserves to be sponsored by you, its that kid. He's worked too hard not to get one of yours, scholarship or not. He passed every subject in the International Trainer Exams (ITE) with flying colors, hell he was even amazing in the survival course, and almost everyone struggles with that. That rich kid from Celadon and his dad shouldn't have had to force your hand in the first place. He doesn't belong with the others" she remarked.

Emma watched as Oak walked over to the coffee machine and poured himself another cup. Once done, he began to sip on it as he sat back down in the wooden chair across from her. He looked back out into the fields, where Pokemon were now beginning meander towards the lab in order to receive their food.

"Ash isn't a prodigy, not like Gary is anyway. He also doesn't have the privilege of all the traveling and firsthand experience that leaf has because of her parents." Oak looked back towards his assistant and she noticed he had a smile that that reached his eyes as he reminisced about the young man whom he had come to think of as his own. "Ash Ketchum is shaping up to have amazing potential. He has had to work extremely hard for every single one of his marks. Late nights here at the lab. Asking me all kinds of questions and poking my brain about different theories on raising and battling Pokemon. Helping with all the chores that come with dealing with hundreds of Pokemon daily. Giving up his weekends to work odd jobs around the lab. Scrimping and saving every dollar, just so he could afford some second-hand equipment from Poke-Bay. If he hadn't scored second in the overall ranking, I doubt I could have persuaded the league to give him the Amateur Trainers Scholarship in the first place. I couldn't just let all the time he invested, all the time he spent here at the lab helping us and studying, go to waste. And if it cost me a couple of favors" Oak shrugged "then so be it."

Emma hummed in agreement "We should be so lucky that the rich kid wanted the easiest Pokemon to train and stopped by to pick up his Bulbasaur yesterday. Plus, we got the other Pokemon in late last night from Sinnoh, so everything should be fine."

Just as she finished speaking, they were both startled by a loud bellow coming from outside, the Pokemon were starting to get hungry. Oak looked at his watch, the small hand pointing at the seven and the big hand pointing at just past the half hour mark

"Sorry we're late! Got a Flat on the way here."

"Yea, so in order to make it up, we'll get started with the morning chores!" Said a rather tall and lanky man.

Oak Smiled "Well Emma, looks like you lucked out on feeding duties today" He got up and started heading towards the area with all the high-tech equipment. "C'mon you can help me make sure all the Pokedex's are calibrated, as well as handle the last of the paperwork."

* * *

Several Miles down the road from Professor Oaks Pokemon Ranch, slept the very topic of conversation, unaware of the praise he was currently receiving from one of the most respected men in the world.

Ash Ketchum was lying spread eagle on top of his bed, sleeping like he didn't have a care in the world. And then there was a Delia Ketchum leaning on the doorway, with a mixed expression of happiness and sadness. She looked at his sleeping form and knew that she was going to have to wake him up soon if he wanted to receive his Pokemon. As she looked at him, sleeping as if it was just another regular day, she couldn't help but feel like she was about to lose her only son. Just like she had lost the love of her life, the man who had fathered Ash.

Ash's father had been a Pokemon trainer, a champion in the making, when they had first met all those years ago. She had just been starting out her modeling career when they met in Saffron. She had never been able to describe to Ash, or anyone else for that matter, what she had felt for his father. The years she spent with him had been some of the best of her life. She had married the love of her life. She gave birth to a healthy and beautiful baby boy and had settled down in her hometown.

But his father had never stopped pursuing his dreams of joining the Elite Four. Eventually he climbed through the ranks and was noticed by higher ups, enough to be placed onto the infamous Alpha Squad. It was a squad composed of some the best trainers in both Kanto and Johto, trainers whose caliber were just beneath the Elite Four. Once placed there he had worked even harder and assumed more responsibilities. While trying his best not to neglect his wife and growing child. Ash had been 7 years old when his father was finally been made Alpha squad leader. It had been the Ketchum's family best day when they had received that announcement. With the new Bonus, Delia had been able to start her restaurant and begin enrolling Ash into primary school. It was only a few months later that tragedy struck.

Her husband had received an emergency call late in the night. Whatever it had been, Delia hadn't known. He had assured her everything was going to be alright, that he was going to be alright, and then he had left. That had been the last time she had heard from him, the last time she had embraced him, and the last time she would ever feel the warmth of her love sleeping next to her.

She received the bad news several days later. While most of the details had been kept classified, they had told her that her husband, his Pokemon, as well as two others, had perished the night. The only silver lining being that they had saved thousands of lives. She couldn't remember much after that. She had felt like a passenger in her body for the next couple days. She could barely remember breaking the news to Ash. The funeral in her mind was a foggy mess, consisting of a couple dozen League officials and acquaintances telling her how brave and noble he had been, even to the very end.

She had spent months recovering. It helped that the league had covered the expenses of his funeral, along with granting them some money for other expenses. In the end the person that had brought her back from the brink had been her son. Ash had been there alongside her, taking the death of his father better than she had any right to expect from him. He had been such a trooper. Helping with the restaurant, her duties with Professor Oak, even maintaining the house and cooking some easy meals. He had helped her slowly but surely regain her zest for life. It had been several months later that he nearly broke her heart again. She could still remember the way he had sat down next to her on their couch while she watched some old rom-com.

"Mom, I want to be a Pokemon Trainer" he declared while looking directly into her eyes." I want to finish what dad started. I want to make him proud and live up to his legacy"

Looking at the determination in her son's eyes, she saw the fire that burned within them. It was the same passion that had burned inside her husband's eyes. She knew then and there was no changing his mind. In that moment she could clearly see that he was his father's son. She moved to envelop her son in a hug and let the tears flow freely down her face. That day she made herself a promise to herself, that by the time Ash was ready to go into the world at age 16, he would be ready.

It had been a long and hard eight years since that moment. Though they had managed to pay off the house with the money the league had given them, raising a growing teenager who wanted to become a Pokemon trainer, along with maintaining her restaurant, was another matter. The costs of classes (which were just absurd in her mind) and survival courses (she was not going to lose her baby boy just because he couldn't build a fire) really added up. Thank Arceus Ash had been such a low maintenance child. Even when he did need something, he would usually find a way to acquire the funds himself. Even if it was just helping at the restaurant or at the Ranch when the Professor had a job that even his aides were reluctant to do, Ash had managed to persevere. And it had shown results. Ash might not have been a prodigy Like Gary Oak, (Seriously how is that even fair?) but he had still managed to trail him throughout most of their teenage years. And when had gotten the results of the ITE's, they had been ecstatic. While Ash could have easily received a starter from the nearby Pokemon gym in Viridian City, he had decided that the easy way wasn't good enough for him, and he had applied to be sponsored by Professor Samuel Oak.

While this should have been easy, especially since Oak had known Ash since birth, it had actually been incredibly difficult. The fact of the matter was that raising some of the rarest Pokemon in the entire world was extremely expensive (100,000 Poke-Credits is no small amount), so much so that it was rare for Oak to even consider more than one sponsorship every training season. On top of that, his standards were extremely strict. Requiring that the kids he sponsored send detailed reports of any and all Pokemon that the trainers owned, training methods, eating habits, as well as being a morally upstanding citizen in the eyes of the Pokemon League and the Law. That being said, Ash's academic record and all the help he had given to Oak's Lab over the years spoke for itself. The scholarship that Oak had managed to help him get made the whole deal that much sweeter.

There had never been a question if Gary would be sponsored, Afterall he had been number 1 in their class regionally, as well as having his expenses paid partly by his parents and partly by Oak. Leaf hadn't been to dissimilar to Gary. She had even beat Ash in some classes, though was brought down partially due to the practical portions, and her parents were financially well off. It seemed like this season, the kids from the boonies were going to take the region by storm.

"Well I guess I've been reminiscing long enough" Delia whispered to herself. She went back downstairs, grabbed a bucket, and filled it with cold water. "Might as well have one last bit of fun at his expense, especially since he's leaving today"

SPLASH!

"UUUGGHHHH WHAT THE HELL!" Ash Ketchum had never moved so faster off his bed than he had at that moment. "Mom…Why did you just dump a bucket of cold water on my face" Ash could only wait and watch as his mother held onto her stomach and laughed at his pain. She finally slowing down enough to answer as she wiped some tears away from her eyes.

"I'm sorry honey, but it's almost 8'o'clock, and you have to start getting ready if you want to get your Pokemon today. Remember Professor Oak expects you there at 9 AM sharp." She responded, unable to hide the amusement in her voice.

Ash looked at the watch on his left wrist and sighed.

"Well I guess I can just come back and grab my stuff after I get my starter. Imma just take a quick shower and head over there. Mind giving me a ride in about 20 minutes mom?"

Delia smiled as she closed the door. "You know I don't honey. I'll see you back here after you get your starter. I have a few things to tend to at the restaurant"

* * *

Ash Ketchum had never felt so anxious as he did in that moment. Staring at the concrete steps that led up to the farm house, he couldn't help but feel as if the weight of the world settled onto his shoulders. Everything he had worked for was finally paying off. At long last, he was going to be a Pokemon trainer. Battling Gym leaders and trainers alike for the next 18 months in order to qualify for the Indigo conference, and by extension, the ability to challenge the Elite Four. He took a deep breath and blew it all out. Now wasn't the time to get sentimental, now it was time to go get his Pokemon. And with that he took the first step up those stairs.

Opening the front doors, he looked around spotted that the others who were waiting on him.

"ASH!"

Was what he heard before he felt a pair of arms wrap around him. He couldn't help but smile as he pulled away and quickly checked her out. The girl in front of him was wearing a white sun hat, a white shirt and red beach wrap cover up skirt with a white floral pattern. Her honey and sage colored eyes danced with mischief as the sunlight shone its rays among them through the glass ceiling. Beautiful was a word too tame to describe the young lady he held in his arms. And he would rather face the wrath of Zapdos than ever tell her that.

"Hey Leaf" Ash responded with a smile. "Ready to get this party started?"

"We've just been waiting on you Ashy-Boy" Gary huffed as he crossed his arms.

"Yea Yea don't get your panties in a twist Gary" Ash retorted "I'm here now aren't I?"

Professor Oak decided this was as a good time as any to intervene, especially since these sessions of trading insults always resulted in going nowhere. With that, he coughed a bit into his fist to get their attention. The 3 teens looked somewhat embarrassed for getting off track though they finally gave him their full attention.

That was better, he could finally address them.

"Now that I have your attention, I would like to make a quick announcement. As you all might know, I no longer have a Bulbasaur in my possession, but I do think I have found a suitable though slightly unconventional replacement for his place as a starter." This seemed to peak their interest. Especially Leaf's', since she had been the most interested in using Bulbasaur as a starter. Samuel Oak smiled. He loved subverting people's expectations.

"I had to call in a few favors and promise a few IOU's, but I think whoever gets him will really appreciate him."

Oak nodded towards his aides, letting them know it was time to release the Pokemon. As the bright light that always accompanied a released Pokemon subsided, the three trainers could do nothing but admire the fine specimen in front one them

The first was a two-foot-tall reptilian looking animal. His scales were a light turquoise color that contrasted with the hard-yellow underbelly and shell that resided on its back. Ash knew that this Pokemon was one of the strongest water types in all of Kanto and Johto, though they were rarely seen, due to as how difficult it was to control the third evolution, Blastoise. While they weren't as aggressive as their fiery counterpart, they still refused to follow the orders of weak trainers. Most trainers just couldn't fully appreciate or use Blastoise to its fullest extent, seeing as how most people were just too lazy to put in the time to fully cultivate the power of the Pokemon, Because of this, Squirtle's and its evolutionary line were often avoided, most trainers leaning towards some more agreeable water types, such as the Goldeen or Staryu line

Secondly was the infamous Charmander. This two-foot-tall orange scaled lizard was one of the most famous/ rarest Pokemon in the world. Professor Oak only handed one out every two years, and the only other place to acquire them being the breeders in the Charicific Valley. Any fully evolved Charizard the lived in the wild was closely monitored, lest it go on a destructive rampage. There had also been reports of wild Charizard killing trainers who were too weak when looking for one in the wild. They had a reputation of being extremely hostile towards weaker trainers and being immensely difficult to train and control.

The last Pokemon was so rare that Ash had only ever seen its pictures. It was a bipedal canine looking Pokemon. It stood a bit taller on its two dark fur covered legs with a partially black torso Most of its body seemed to be compromised of blue fur except for its collar which looked to be yellow, and its eyes. The eyes had black fur around them that looked reminiscent of a mask, and the black extended all the way to its long floppy ears.

"Riolu" whispered Ash

That's Correct!" Oak said with a huge grin. He walked over to the Pokemon and started petting him. "While this may be a bit unfair to the rest of the trainers in Kanto, I'm not sponsoring them, I'm sponsoring you guys" He stood up and faced them. "Since I was forced to give Bulbasaur away, I wanted to give you guys the chance to have something just as good, since good grass types are hard to find. So" Oak clapped his hand together," Shall we begin? Gary You'll be going first since you did score the highest. Trying to be fair and all."

Ash looked as Gary headed towards the Pokemon, having no doubt which one Gary would pick. He had raved about it for months, designing strategies and tactics, saying how this was a Pokemon he could really build a team around. He watched as Gary bent down to pick up the Squirtle. He gave the Pokemon a smile and addressed him.

"You're coming with me. I have a plan for us to reach the top of the world, and we're going to do it together."

The Squirtle seemed to understand and gave him a smile and a nod.

"That's what I like to hear. C'mon we should get going, it's a long trip to Viridian City and I want to reach it by nightfall." He picked up Squirtle's pokeball and shot a red beam from it. Ash and Leaf watched as Gary placed the ball in a special holder on his belt, grabbed the red handheld and pokeballs that his grandfather held out, and began walking out of the lab.

"Thanks for everything gramps! I promise you'll get my report at the end of the month." He shouted over his shoulder. Right before he walked out the door, he stopped next to Ash and gave him a rather serious look. "And I better see you standing next to me at the Indigo Conference" He gave a small nod to Leaf and walked out.

"Ash if you wouldn't mind being next?"

"No, of course not Professor."

Ash stepped up to the podium and gave a quick glance at the Riolu. He knew how much potential this Pokemon held, even more so when it evolved into a Lucario. Every brain cell inside his mind was screaming at him to get the Riolu. It was the most logical course of action after all. They were extremely loyal companions and were some of the strongest dual types you could catch. Hell, even the Pokemon Champion from Sinnoh, Cynthia (at least he thinks that's her name), actively had one on her main team. But Ash had a plan, and he wasn't about to deviate from it now.

He turned towards the fire type, crouched down, and looked into his eyes, and felt as if time had stopped. In that moment it felt as if it was just the two of them in that room, looking into each other's souls. Ash felt as if grasped the Charmander's wants, his needs, his purpose, his goals. He understood that this Charmander wanted to be a powerful and indomitable Charizard, and he would do whatever it took to get him there. It ignited something in Ash, a feeling so primal that there he couldn't describe it. _Together_, Ash thought, _we can challenge the world_.

"Looks like you've made your decision."

Ash snapped out of it and looked at the Professor, "Yea, I have". He started petting the Charmander's head, the scales of the Pokemon feeling a bit rough under his hands, but nothing he couldn't get used to.

"Imma put you inside your pokeball for a bit, ok bud? I'll let you out when we get back to my house"

"Char!" A red beam enveloped Charmander as he was returned to the comfort of the ball that was his home.

"Well I guess that means you get to take Riolu with you Leaf" said the Professor

"YES!" shrieked the girl. She quickly went up to the Riolu and gave him a bear hug. "O I'm so lucky the other two already had their minds made up about who they wanted. Me and you are going to be best friends, OK?"

Riolu yipped, his excitement quite noticeable as his tail began to wag rapidly from side to side.

"Well I guess that means I can get going." She reached for the Pokedex and looked back towards Ash, throwing him a two-finger salute and a wink. "And I'll see you on the road. It's supposed to rain tonight, so I'm going to catch a ride with Gary up to Viridian. Not all of us like ruffing it as much as you." With that said, she walked out the door.

And if Ash let his eyes wander towards her rear as she walked away, well no harm no foul right?

"Ahhh to be young again"

Ash jumped a bit back, heat rushing to his cheeks.

"Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha" Oaks laugh filled the room. "I can't wait to tell your mother"

"Please don't" mumbled Ash, feeling as if his whole body couldn't get any hotter. "She already gives me a hard time since I told her I thought Leaf was pretty."

Oak gave Ash a hardy pat on the back, "Don't worry my boy, a little teasing won't kill you. But you really should get going. Here, take this" He handed Ash a 3x5 red rectangular box, his very own Pokedex. "Now I'm sure I don't have to remind you that to take extremely good care of this device. It holds the National Pokemon Registry and acts as your League Identifier, plus it does a few other things."

Ash took the device and pokeballs that Oak was holding out to him. "Thanks Professor. I should get going to, I want to reach Viridian in at least three days."

"Wow Ash, pushing yourself from the get-go huh? Most trainers who leave from here take at least five days, if they're not driving that is."

"Well I would like to catch a few Pokemon before I get to Pewter City, as well as train them to the point that I can beat Brock the first time around."

Oak nodded in an agreeable manner "That's a good plan, just be careful out on the road, I've received some reports of an unknown bird Pokemon being overly aggressive towards travelers and Pokemon alike in between here and Viridian. There's been an abnormal amount of low level Pokemon carcasses found in the area. I wouldn't want you to endanger yourself so early in your journey."

"Sure, thing Professor, I promise not to get into too much trouble." Ash walked over to the professor and gave him a quick hug," Thank you… for everything."

Oak sighed, he knew the boy rarely showed any kind of physical affection to anyone outside his immediate friend group. So, he returned the embrace. "It's been a pleasure Ash and please do be careful, I don't know if your mother could lose another."

Ash pulled away and smiled "Of course. I'll make sure to keep in contact." And with that he walked out the door and headed towards his home.

As he adjusted the straps to his rucksack, making sure he had several important items within reach, he heard the front door open.

"ASH" bellowed his mother "ARE YOU HERE?"

"IN MY ROOM MOM"

"Oh, I see you got Charmander after all" noticing the Pokemon in question hanging out in the bedroom. "I thought the Riolu might have been tempting enough to change your mind."

Ash smiled as he gave a quick pat to his Charmander. "No, he's the Pokemon I've been dreaming about having since I started dedicating myself to this. There's no way I was going to let him slip through my fingers."

"Do you have everything you need?" asked Delia." Compass, map, ropes, potions, food, extra underwear?"

"Yea mom"

She held out something for Ash to take.

"Where did you get this?" asked Ash, as he took the olive-green military style jacket and slipped it on.

"Its your dad's old jacket, it was a gift he bought himself when he finally became an Ace trainer"- she hesitated - "he would want you to have it."

Ash stopped moving for a second, letting the implications of receiving the jacket sink in. His mother hardly ever talked about his father, preferring to focus on the present. For her to give this to him, it must have really meant a lot to her.

"Thanks mom, I promise to take good care of it."

Delia gave him a bittersweet smile and embraced him "I know you will, just remember to call me every time you get to a new city, I don't want to go months without hearing from you, ok?"

He stayed in that position for a few minutes. Not knowing when the next time he would see his mom would be, he relished the contact.

He pulled away and wiped some of tears off his face. "I really do have to get going now mom. I love you. C'mon Charmander, let's get going."

"Bye Ash" said Delia in somber tone, as she waved her son off.

As soon as he passed the gate that separated Pallet Town and Route 1, he released Charmander.

"I'm gonna have you walk with me for as long as you can, ok? It'll help build up your leg muscles and build up your endurance."

"Char!"

And with that, they continued down the trail.

Standing on top of the cliff that overlooked Pallet Town, the quaint village was the perfect image of serenity. "This is as good as place as any I suppose" He pointed the Pokedex towards the reptile, saw a soft blue light scan the Pokemon, and heard a velvety baritone voice bring the item to life.

"_Charmander- The Lizard Pokémon-From the time it is born, a flame burns at the tip of its tail. Its life would end if the flame were to go out. This Charmander is a male, is 2 ft tall and weighs approximately 20 lbs. Its ability is Blaze, which increases the power of its fire type moves when low on health. The moves this Charmander currently knows are Ember, Scratch, Bite, Smokescreen, Dragon Pulse, and Dragon Rush."_

Ash's eyes bulged "Holy Shit, you know Dragon Rush? And Dragon Pulse? Those breeders at Charicific Valley must really be stepping up their game." He watched the pokemon puff out his chest and look extremely proud of himself. "O yea? Well let's see how good you perform all of these moves." He pointed at a sturdy looking boulder. "Do every move one by one on that rock."

Ash stood by patiently as Charmander did as asked. He noticed that as he was gearing up to execute dragon rush, a blue energy field of what he assumed to be draconic energy encapsulated Charmander. He barely did any damage to the boulder, it looked painfully pitiful. As if he only knew the rudimentary steps of the move. _Well it looks like we have quite a bit to work on. _He made some internal notes to work on strengthening Charmander's attacks before trying to expand his movepool.

"Not bad, not bad at all. You have the pieces for a great foundation, we just have to work on building on that. OK bud?" The lizard glanced at the boulder, noticing that the only move that had even dented it was dragon rush, and put his head down. "Don't be sad Charmander, we're both just starting out, and you're bound to get stronger. This I Promise you." Ash knelt in front of the Pokemon. "Hey, do you want a nickname?"

"Char?"

"It would be a name I would give you to make you unique, you know?" To stand out among other Pokemon." The lizard gave him a toothy smile and shook his head up and down.

_Hmmm what would be a good name? It needs to sound fierce and dangerous. _He had never been a fan of generic or silly names that other trainers seemed so fond of. A couple of names passed through his head, though there was only one that really stood out to him. A name of a monster from mythology that challenged the gods and brought them to their knees. A damn near unstoppable force.

"How about Typhaon?" asked Ash.

"Char?" He asked as he tilted his head to the side in a questioning manner.

Ash smiled as he stood up and looked towards the Mountains in the horizon, in the direction in where he knew the Pokémon League laid beyond.

"We're going to challenge the utmost powerful trainers in the world. People that have beaten the odds and achieved a status that most people can only ever dream of. Trainers that are revered and damn near worshipped throughout this country. They stand at the top of our world Charmander." He looked back down at Charmander and give him a smile that promised many things, but most importantly, it promised the world. "We're going to show the world that even gods can bleed"

Charmander had never heard a human speak like this. Sure, he had an innate desire to be strong, just like others of his kind. But this, this was different. The passion behind the words of this trainer, talking about facing the best this world had to offer, and _winning_. Of course, he knew it would be hard, but that only elevated the excitement the Pokemon felt. _His trainer _was worthy of following. And follow him he would, through hell if need be.

"CHAR!" He released a torrent of fire into the air, indicating his enthusiasm towards the name.

"Great" Ash gave him a small smile, "We'll start training tomorrow, lets just get as far as we can today." He turned around and proceeded down the trail towards Viridian City, the newly styled Typhaon, trailing next to him.

Day and night passed without any issues, the pair only stopping to eat and sleep. The rain had come as promised and Ash took deliberate care when setting up a tarp above his tent to make sure Typhaon could sleep outside with him without any issues.

Breakfast was a simple affair and Ash made sure to feed the lizard plenty. Training merely consisted of Typhaon practicing accuracy and doing some speed drills. The power would come as he grew, but power would be useless if he couldn't hit anything.

It wasn't till around midday that Ash felt started to feel weird about the area. He noticed the dwindling amount of wildlife as he continued the trail. _I wonder if this is because of that wild bird Professor Oak was talking about?_ Looking around into the treetops, he saw the entrails hanging off a Rattata that dangled off a tree ten feet into the woods. Upon closer inspection he saw a Sentret that suffered the same fate several feet away. He reached for the pokeball on his belt and released Typhaon.

"We gotta go find this bird. It doesn't belong here, and its disrupting the natural balance." With that said, the pair trekked deeper into the woods. Although he only knew the very basics of tracking, the trail the bird had left in its wake was easy to follow. Typhaon found their prey in a small clearing after walking a about mile in, and it looked like it was about to make a meal out of a Pidgey.

"Typhaon! Use smokescreen to hide that Pidgey!" A thick dark cloud of smoke hid the injured animal from the finishing attack of the bird. Ash heard a loud squawk. The bird in question looked mad that they had deprived it of its meal. Ash watched as the smaller bird quickly flew away, and now they were the center of attention. _Bring it._

Typhaon took a couple of steps forward and growled at the bird, issuing a challenge, and the bird accepted. It nosedived towards his target, but Ash and Typhaon were ready.

"Jump over it and use Ember" The bird flew through the spot were Typhaon had just been and took a hit from the fire. Apparently, the attack startled the bird enough to cause it to crash into the dirt. "Quick, use Bite, don't let it get back into the air." Typhaon ran towards the bird, but it managed to get back into the air before he could reach it. _Shit._

The bird was starting to gain speed again. Ash heard another squawk before it disappeared. He caught glimpses of it as it raced towards Typhaon. _Has to be quick attack, but how in the hell is it this fast? And are its wings glowing?_

"Dodge it!" The bird flew faster than Typhaon could react, knocking him off his feet and sending him flying.

"You Ok?" As he watched Typhaon struggled to stand up. He knew Pokemon were a lot tougher than they looked, but still, that combo had looked painful.

"Char!". There was no way he was about to lose to some overgrown fowl, now that would be embarrassing.

Ash noticed the bird start turning around preparing to use the same tactics. _Maybe if I obscure its vision?_

"Pump out as much smokescreen as you can and charge up an Ember. As soon as you see it, blast him." He anxiously awaited as the bird started his combo again, watching as Typhaon released enough smoke to conceal him. The bird must have been confident he could hit the lizard, because he flew right into the cloud, face first into a blast of fire. Ash observed as it crashed into the ground once more.

_You're not getting away from me this time._ He threw a pokeball towards the downed Pokemon. _C'mon C'mon!_ The white center of the ball signaled a successful capture.

"YES!" he thundered and gave a quick fist pump.

"Let's get you fixed up, ok bud?" Ash addressed his Pokemon as he walked over and picked up the ball. "We can introduce ourselves to this guy afterword's. Here"- he pulled out a potion from his bag- "this might sting a little, but it should heal any minor injuries you received"

Typhaon winced a bit as Ash steadily applied the potion, but felt the soothing medicinal properties begin to cover and heal him. A few minutes later he felt as good as new. He smacked his tail against the ground and gave his trainer a toothy grin.

"Char"

Ash smiled and touched his forehead to Typhaons forehead. "We might have been a little sloppy bud, but that just means we loads of room to improve, Let's not worry about being perfect, we can leave that for Gary, lets just focus on getting better, ok bud?"

"Char!"

Ash grinned as he stood up. "Let's go ahead and meet the new guy." He threw the ball that held their new partner. "No point in putting it off."

Ash kept his arms crossed while he studied the Pokemon, letting it stumble and readjust to its surroundings. The avian was covered in black and white markings, with a prominent black "M" pattern across its chest. He noticed that the face was predominantly white except for greyish looking spot on its forehead. It had a long orange beak that oddly enough ended with a black tip. What Ash found the most amusing was the way the long feathers on the back of its head curved forward. It gave him a weak screech in protest, knowing that it was currently too spent to keep fighting.

_Staravia- The Starling Pokemon- It has a savage nature. It will courageously challenge foes that are much larger. Abnormality detected, this Staravia exceeds the normal parameters for size. Standing 4 ft tall, weighing 50 lbs. with a wingspan of 10 ft._ _Its ability is Intimidate, hidden ability is Reckless, in were the Pokemon disregards its own health to deal additional damage to the enemy. The moves this Staravia currently knows are Quick Attack, Wing Attack, Double Team, Gust, And Tailwind. _

_I remember reading about Kings Nature, but the odds of finding one were supposed to be astronomically rare, how in the hell did I find one as my second Pokemon?_

"Hmm, a surprise to be sure, but a welcome one"

The bird screeched at him, almost as if it was annoyed, Typhaon tensed up next to him, ready to defend his trainer. _This won't do_ he thought, he needed to get along with Staravia, not keep fighting with him. Ash got down on one knee to address the impudent bird.

"Well aren't you far from home. Last time I checked, you belonged in Sinnoh. How did you end up so far south?" The bird huffed, as if it should have been obvious. Ash snapped his fingers "The Septrional Migratio to the Sevii Islands, you must have gotten separated from your flock on the way back to the north." It chirped in agreement.

Ash knew how to sway the Pokemon. He needed to appeal to its aggressive and competitive nature.

"I know that you must have felt like king of the hill here, gorging yourself every day, with no natural predators around. That doesn't mean you're strong though" It gave him a curious look. "You fought nothing but weaklings. Pokemon so weak I never even considered capturing them. I could release you, and you'll live out the rest of your miserable life doing this every day. And you'll die, never knowing how strong you could have been. Or"- he pointed a thumb at Typhaon- "You can come with us and fight the best this world has to offer. There will be times where it'll be tough, where we'll both be so beaten down that we'll want to quit. But I won't let us" He stood up "In order to grow and get stronger in this life, we have to be willing to suffer. So, are you up for it?"

Staravia thought over the humans' proposal. He had been so _bored_ since he had gotten split up from the flock after the storm. There had been no thrill in hunting these puny Pokemon. And the other two bird species had barely put up a fight. Even the bigger ones had been cautious to confront him. They were _pathetic._ What this human offered was excitement, and a challenge. The ability to dominate the sky's and make them his domain. How could he say no? Besides, the overgrown reptile owed him a rematch. He nodded yes.

"Great" he beamed. "Now let's get you fixed up." He pulled out another potion and started applying some to Staravia's wings.

"Now I need to give you a nickname"

Staravia let out a chirp

"Its to make you unique, to have you stand out amongst everyone else instead of me just calling out a generic name." This wouldn't be too hard, he liked the idea of using names from mythology. And he had the perfect one for Staravia (he hoped so anyways).

"How about Horus? It loosely translates to the 'The One Far Above." He inspected Staravia, making sure he didn't miss any injuries. "In olden times, he was worshipped as the sky god and a protector."

Horus gave him a small trill, which Ash took as acceptance.

"Great! So, do you want to get back inside your pokeball? Or would you prefer to stay outside?" The newly dubbed Horus started flapping his wings and flew into the sky. "Well I guess that's answer."

"C'mon bud let's get going."

It took them a bit to get back the trail, having to check his map and compass to make sure they were going the right way. Along the way, Ash made sure to keep an eye on Horus. While he was about 75% sure he wouldn't run away, he wanted to make sure he wasn't going around killing anymore Pokemon all willy-nilly. He watched as Horus flew high up in the air, flying around lazily in circles, wondering how expensive it would be to buy a saddle in Saffron city.

_Speaking of money, _He needed to find some trainers to fight. While he had worked after classes and on weekends, he had only left with 1500 credits in the bank. It was enough to buy some food and a couple potions, but if he planned to catch some more Pokemon, it wouldn't be near enough.

With the rising popularity of beauty contests and Pokemon races, the league had instituted an incentive program to make sure that battling stayed viable among its competition. It was a simplistic system. When two trainers battled, the losing trainer would transfer 250 credits to the winner, with Gym leaders having to give winning challengers 10,000 credits. As well as offering free medical services at Pokemon Centers only to trainers. This allowed newer trainers to find some stability while traveling and finding their place in the world.

Ash felt a little annoyance as the rest of the afternoon dragged on, the only travelers being suppliers and vendors coming to and from Viridian City.

"Might as well call it a night and find a place to camp." He cried out to Horus, informing the bird that they were stopping for the night

_Yelling is incredibly inconvenient when he's in the sky. I wonder if there's a way to train him to respond to whistles? _

Ash found a frequently used campsite off the main path and started setting up camp. That night, he studied his Pokedex and some of the notes he written over the years. If he was going to challenge the Elite Four in 18 months, then he needed to make an outline for his current Pokemon and start planning for when he caught more. He had already decided to be pragmatic and only catch Pokemon that caught his eye due to their strengths, abilities, and future potential.

Most sympathetic and average trainers would argue that the competitive viability of Pokemon was subjective, those guys were idiots. Objectively, there were Pokemon that stood above the rest. For example, you would never use a Ratticate just because you caught it first, over something like a Garchomp. It was stupid and idealistic to think they were all on a level playing field. And if he wanted challenge those who stood at the pinnacle of their world, then he needed to have unstoppable forces of nature on his side.

Deciding that they would get serious after Viridian, Ash put his things away and got ready for bed. Spotting Horus perched a tree branch nearby, and seeing Typhaon curled up next to him, he slipped closed his sleeping bag and went to bed. Hopefully they would encounter trainers on the last leg to the city, he was itching to get a taste of battle.


	2. Chapter 2

**Thank you to everyone who read and enjoyed the first chapter. I'm releasing this chapter a bit early mainly due to me wanting to keep each chapter around 10k words. As always, any reviews are much appreciated.**

"SANDSHREW! Defense curl into rollout! Knock him out fast!"

"Dragon rush. Get him off balance. Try to end it with rapid fire."

Ash watched the yellow pokemon curl up into a tight ball and its hide take on a reflective sheen, indicating that defense curl had taken effect. The yellow ball started spinning rapidly and begin moving forward.

Typhaon watched everything happen in front of him as he gathered the necessary draconic energy to perform his attack. Being a fire type, it was insanely difficult to harness the energy. That, and he wasn't sure on how to _actually _execute it. But his trainer was insistent that he practice the move, so here he was performing it for the fifth time today. Even if it resembled more of a glorified tackle than the overwhelming destructive force it was supposed to be.

He waited till the orb had gained enough momentum and closed the distance before he rushed forward. He met the attack head on and for a brief second, struggled to overwhelm the yellow pokemon. Fortunately, his blue aura managed to overpower his opponent and knocked the rodent backwards. He then used a technique that his trainer had showed him a few hours earlier called rapid fire.

The technique was a variation of ember. While ember is considered to be an extremely weak fire attack, one that was only supposed to be used at close range, this technique changed that. His first instinct was to open his jaw wide and spew as much of the feeble fire as he could, but this new method went against that. So, when given the order of rapid fire, he would form his mouth into an "O" shape and fire a tightly controlled and stronger ember at a much faster rate. The effects this had was turning the weak and low range move, into something that crossed further distances at a higher velocity and potency.

He launched the attack as soon as he saw his foe hit the ground. The onslaught continued until Typhaon saw a red beam suck the nearly unconscious pokemon back into his ball. He belt out a large cloud of fire into the air and grinned. He had won.

The trainer across from Ash sighed. What was his name again?

"I thought I had the type- advantage there, but I hadn't expected your Charmander to be so well controlled this fast. Especially since the season just started a couple days ago."

Ash gave the guy a tight grin. He knew Typhaons technique was sloppy and needed more work. Afterall they had barely gotten the basics down this morning. But they had finally found some trainers this morning, so when fighting he had made sure his pokemon practiced their skills as much possible.

"Got lucky I suppose. I wouldn't have stood a chance if that roll out had connected though. It's too strong a move for him to handle right now" responded Ash as he accepted the money being handed to him.

"Yea, well I didn't expect your bird to be so strong either. First of his kind I seen around here so I thought he might have been some weak straggler left behind."

This time Ash gave him a genuine smile. He knew that Horus knocking out the teens spearow so fast had hurt his ego. But Ash didn't care, it had been some good experience for Horus in aerial combat.

"Did you get your sandshrew from Giovanni?" inquired Ash. They weren't exactly common pokemon around here, mostly being seen around the mountain range that separated Kanto and Johto, as well as the area around Mt Moon.

"Yea. Me and several others all got our pokemon from his gym. Didn't get to meet the guy though. Apparently, he had business in Saffron that he had to take care of. "

"Damn"

"Oh? Were you hoping to challenge him this early?"

"No not at all" shrugged Ash." I just wanted to talk to the guy, get some insight on raising ground types. His reputation is legendary after all, plus he's tied with Sabrina for the title of toughest gym leader. Any kind of tips he could give me would go a long way."

"Good luck with that "snorted the teen. "He gives no one the time of day unless they have 6 badges from the _reputable_ gyms."

"Hmm well thanks. I should get going though. Things to do, pokemon to catch."

With that, Ash continued down the dirt path with Typhaon at his heels. He would have let Horus out to fly, but the bird had taken a couple of nasty hits earlier and he wanted to wait until Nurse Joy checked him out.

Letting out a big breath of air after finally seeing the gates to the city, Ash reminisced on their morning.

After waking up and walking down the trail, they finally started encountering trainers after Ash got about an hour away from the city. From what he could gather, most of them had attended school together and decided to train in and around the city for a while. Mostly to get comfortable with their starters and pick up another pokemon or two from the wide variety that surrounded the city.

None of them were _bad _trainers per say, most just couldn't think outside the box. Since most had received an eclectic mix of ground and rock type, they all thought they could just knock out his fire and flying type without too much hassle. Ash grinned while thinking about he beat most of them easily. The only battle he had lost was against a boy with a hyper-aggressive mankey. But he had used the last of his potions and healed up Horus enough to fight the next kid.

Speaking of which, he mentally began analyzing the fights that both his pokemon had participated in. _Maybe I should buy a camera to record our future fights and training sessions? _It was something to give some consideration.

Watching the two fight a variety of opponents, Ash felt like he was starting to grasp their individual fighting styles

Typhaons attack style was somewhat predictable. He liked to get up close and personal with his foes and crush them. It was a pretty straight forward fighting style that most people tried to curb out of their more aggressive pokemon. But Ash wasn't most people. Professor Oak had taught him that changing a pokemons style went against most of their natural instincts and created a huge handicap that caused the pokemon to rely heavily on commands. He planned to hone Typhaons instincts as much as possible, and supplement it with endurance, technique, and power.

Horus surprisingly liked to overwhelm them with his speed and ferocity. But one of his greatest strengths also happened to be his biggest weakness. While his size allowed him to move faster than normal, it also made him a bigger target, allowing others who couldn't fly to tag him if he wasn't careful. He also seemed to be a showoff. Performing unnecessary aerobatic maneuvers when fighting. Ash could make it work it work though. It could be useful, especially to throw off other birds when dog fighting. Most seemed to like to play a cat and mouse game in the air and would not expect the fancy moves. He would have to look at videos of the gym leaders of Falkner and Winona to pick up some tricks.

He finally spotted the enormous circular building, and damn was it impressive to behold. The half shell concrete dome on the roof just barely covered the massive red-letter P. The sun dipping just low enough to accentuate the design. The entrance was just as grand. With Tuscan columns evenly spaced out in a bowed fashion in order to support the massive concrete canopy. The entire front of the building being built out of glass in order to allow as much natural light as possible.

Walking through the gardens, Ash couldn't help but admire the beauty of the simplistic design.

He knew all pokemon centers were made by the league to be some of the most majestic buildings in every city. The buildings often gave off a sense of serenity and warmth, which helped alleviate most of the public resentment towards pokemon centers.

While pokemon centers were free for any registered trainer, the same couldn't be said for the general public. The costs of maintaining and staffing the centers, ever growing medical knowledge, and cutting-edge technology were incredibly high. And while the league provided most of the funds and subsidies, this still left a portion of expenses to be covered. They raised the funds by charging any non-registered human a small fee to use their facilities. While there had been some initial backlash when these policies had first been put in place, most of the anger had since been subdued when the benefits of having a pokemon center were plainly evident.

Making his way inside, he gave a nod to the two security officers at the entrance and walked over to the front desk.

"Well hello young man, what can I do for you?" asked the receptionist.

"Could you take a look at my pokemon? My staravia took a couple of unnecessary hits trying to show off to a machop. Also, could I get a room please?"

"No problem. I just need to take a peek at your pokedex to confirm you are who you say you are and that these pokemon belong to you." She hummed as she took his pokedex and checked his identification.

"Hmm everything seems to be in order, so here's this" she handed him back his pokedex along with a card key. "It will be a couple hours before you can get them back though. The staff is having trouble keeping up since most of the new trainers decided to stay around the city for a bit."

"That's no problem, I gotta restock on a couple things." Just as Ash was about to turn around, he remembered something. "Oh, I also need to register for the Indigo Plateau Conference"

The receptionist quickly input a few commands on her keyboard.

"OK, just put your pokedex on the center of the box on this screen and that should do it"

Ash did as he was told and was rewarded with a little pop-up that said _Congratulations._

He smiled. _So, it's finally official._

"Thank you."- said Ash as he quickly scanned for her nametag- "Alice"

"No problem Ash, and please do enjoy your visit here in our wonderful city" said Alice with a small smile.

* * *

Ash looked around the standard sized room. It was sparsely decorated, with a twin sized bed pushed up against the furthest wall, a small nightstand, a perch near the window, and a small bathroom with a shower. It would do for now, but if he was going to get more or even bigger pokemon, he would have to consider staying in hotels when in cities.

He laid down his rucksack next to the bed and started emptying all his edc gear on top of the nightstand.

"Should I let the guys out first, or take a shower?" Ash asked himself. "Na, they been cooped up all day and they need to eat. I can get ready for bed while they finish eating."

He grabbed the two pokeballs off his belt and released them. While the two looked around and got comfortable, Ash fished out the new bowls he had just bought, along with the new food and berries he had picked up from one of the breeders in town.

Ash smiled as they devoured the food

"You guys like it? Picked it up specifically to match your class types."

Horus raise his eyebrow at Ash

"I know that you can hunt, but I would rather get you on a steady diet, offset by some fish of course."

Typhaons interest was piqued at the mention of fish.

Ash smiled and rubbed Typhaons head, making sure to scratch the back of his ear just how he liked it.

"Even though I ordered your food from Charicific Valley, the instructions I got from the breeders said to make sure I feed you some real meat and fish. This synthetic stuff is enough to get you by most of the time, but your body runs better when eating some actual flesh. You guys were once apex predators in the Kanto region after all."

After Ash got out of the shower, he pulled out the fire-resistant blanket and spread it on the bed. He had noticed that Typhaon seemed to enjoy the close- contact, and he wanted his pokemon as comfortable with him as possible. And if that meant withstanding a little heat, then so be it.

He got under the blanket and patted the place next to him.

"C'mon, this blanket won't catch on fire so you're good to sleep next to me."

As Typhaon excitedly jumped up next to him, Ash heard the bed groan a bit at the sudden weight.

He yawned, "Goodnight you guys, remember, tomorrow we're going to check out the Palaestra, so make sure to rest up.

* * *

Ash was promptly woken up by a harsh shriek next to his ear.

"What, what happened" asked a groggy Ash as he sat up in bed.

Looking for the cause of his disturbance, he saw that Typhaon seemed to be freaking out and pointing to the door.

"Umm… do you know what's going on?" he asked Horus. The bird paid him little attention as he stared outside the window, as if he sensed something too.

Typhaon let out another roar that seem laced with frustration.

"All right, all right let me just put on some clothes real quick and we can go."

Running down the stairs and out the door, Ash couldn't help but feel some anxiety wash over him. Typhaon never ran if he wasn't in battle or training, preferring to saunter when outside his pokeball. Right now though, Ash was struggling to keep up with the fire pokemon as they made their way across the city with Horus flying just ahead.

Ash took in some his surroundings as they ran towards the northwest side if the city. Noting the tranquility of the city

Viridian didn't have the nightlife that Celadon, Saffron, or even Vermillion boasted. Yet there could be people and pokemon seen at some of the local bars, laughing the night away. Joggers running with poochyena's and houndours, enjoying the last of winters chilly nights as it made way for the warm spring. Even couples just walking around some of the local parks and admiring some of the public works of art.

Ash noticed the road getting a bit wider and more empty building as they got approached the western gate. Seeing as it was a bit past midnight, it looked like there was only two police officers stationed at the entrance.

Typhaon stopped right inside the gates, growling as he looked stared off into the distance. Horus landed right next to him, visibly on the edge too.

"Hey kid, what are you doing out here? A bit past your bedtime isn't it?" asked one of the officers as he stepped out his booth.

Ash noticed that the guy barely looked older than him, _must be new to the force._

"I'm… I'm not really sure. My charmander woke me up and dragged me out here."

"Charmander?" The young man spotted Typhaon. "O wow I've never actually seen one. These guys are so rare, and you only ever see charizards being used in the conferences and leagues. Mind if I check him out?"

"I don't think that such a great idea, he's on the edge about something," Ash gave a nod towards the woods that surrounded the road. "I trust his instincts, and if he senses something dangerous is on its way, then something dangerous is on its way."

"Hmmm, what's your name kid?"

"Ash, what's yours?"

"It's Clint. Give me a second to go inform my partner, I'll be right back."

Ash nodded and watched as the two had an animated discussion. He could tell the older man was more disbelieving, and his heart dropped as he saw him go back to watching something on his monitor.

Clint came back outside and sighed

"Sorry Ash, but I'm going to have to ask you to move along. Boss man isn't about to call in to the precinct and start a commotion, all on the word of a kid and his first stage pokemon."

If looks could kill, Typhaon would have murdered the guy at least three times by now.

Ash signaled for the pokemon to calm down.

"Do you mind if we stay here for another five minutes? Just to calm his nerves?" he pleaded.

Clint lifted his hand and rubbed his eyes. _Just my luck, first week of duty and already dealing with shenanigans_.

"Fine, just make sure to stay out of the road. I don't want you guys getting hit by a car."

"Thanks" Ash replied.

He walked over to his starter and knelt, hoping to see what Typhaon saw.

But it was nighttime, and with the moon waning he could hardly see anything further than a couple feet into the woods.

Ash noticed as Typhaon tensed up and let out a guttural bark of command. He heard Horus squawk in agreement and looked back just in time to see the bird take flight.

_Whatever it is, it's here._

Ash stepped back, knowing that Typhaon would defend him.

_I need to warn them._

Just as Ash was about to yell at the two distracted officers, he noticed something come out of the woods.

The moon reflected off the pokemon, illuminating it just enough so Ash could make out its more prominent features. The first thing he noticed was how short it was. If he had to guess, it was barely as tall as Typhaon. Its dark skin looked rough and solid, with red scales on its belly that formed a diamond shape. It had short, stubby arms and legs, and sported what looked to be a horn. With glowing red eyes, this pokemon gave off an aura of being exceedingly dangerous. But perhaps the most distinguishing feature of all, was the collar around its neck that repeatedly shot out purple electricity through its body.

It spotted them and _roared._

"What the hell was that?" cried Clint as he stepped out the booth. He was about to chastise Ash for letting his pokemon make so much noise, when he spotted the cause of the noise. His eyes widened to comical proportions.

"How in the hell did _that _get down here," he turned to face Ash, "they're supposed to be restricted to Mt Silver."

"I'm not sure, but it looks like it's in pain, maybe you should call your higher-ups, or Giovanni, and tell them to get down here?"

"That's'-that's a good idea." Muttered the man. "BOB! Call headquarters, tell them we got a situation down here!"

The older man, who had been watching from inside the both, shook his head rapidly and picked up a phone.

Clint pulled the pokeball off his belt clip, "Go Mangnemite!"

A flash of light revealed the magnet pokemon.

"Use Head- "

"WAIT!" interrupted Ash. "Let's see if we can talk to it first, he hasn't don't anything to hurt us yet. Maybe he needs help."

Ash looked at the larvitar and wondered how it had gotten here. They were hundreds of miles away from Mt. Silver. _Had it been transported here?_ He shook his head, it didn't matter. It was here and they needed to stop it before it went on the rampage they were so renown for.

"Hey little guy," he spoke softly, in as soothing a tone as he could muster," how about I walk over there and help take that collar?

It responded by releasing an ear-splitting screech at them.

"Well you tried diplomacy." Commented Clint after uncovering his ears. "Now let's try things my way. Mangnemite, use headbutt!"

Ash watched as the ball of steel rushed forward to carry out his instructions. And was swiftly slammed back by a glowing hardened tail.

But larvitar wasn't done.

Its eyes started glowing as it used its natural geokinetic abilities to gather the dirt and rocks around it to form mid-sized boulders in front of him. He then flung them at the magnemite.

"DODGE IT!"

Clint watched as his pokemon, still stumbling from the explosive power of the iron tail, attempted to evade the rocks. His heart dropped as he watched magnemite swerve out of the paths of the first two, only to accidently fly into the paths of the rest. The impact flung the pokemon even further back then where that charmander was standing. Magnemite had been nearly taken out of the fight in less than 30 seconds.

Ash had seen enough. He had let the older man take the lead, thinking that he might have had something planned. But after watching the magnemite get thoroughly wrecked so quickly, he felt a tad bit disappointed in Viridians finest.

He had never thought he would fight a larvitar this early in his journey, with them being so rare and most people never venturing to the fabled mountain. That being the case, he only knew the basics when it came to the pokemon. That lack of information could result in failure to beat the pokemon if he wasn't careful.

He spared the magnemite a glance. It was only conscious due to its sturdy ability, but he would need to buy some time so Clint could heal it.

"Clint, use a potion on your pokemon, and tell your partner that I might need his help. I'm going to buy you some time."

Clint just stood there, eyes wide, mouth gaping like a freshly caught magikarp, unable to believe he had lost so easily

Ash snapped, "NOW CLINT!"

Clint shook his head, trying to shake himself free of the jitters.

"Sure, thanks Ask."

Ash nodded and then gave the larvitar, who had sat this point reached the inner side of the gate and gave it his full attention.

"Horus, use double team into wing attack, don't let him hit you with rock throw. Typhaon get ready to use dragon rush, I want you to go after him as soon as Horus knocks him off balance.

Ash watched, hopeful that his pokemon could beat the larvitar.

Horus came down fast, its glowing wings ready to strike his opponent. His movements were graceful as he dodged all the rocks the smaller pokemon was sending his way. He was kind of surprised the smaller pokemon didn't make any movements to get out of his way, _Your funeral. _In his arrogance, he failed to notice the dark energy gathering at the center of larvitar's opened mouth. Just as he was about to strike the pokemon, he was hit by a powerful beam of dark malicious energy

Ash's eye's widened, "Go Typhaon"

The fire pokemon dashed forward, the cerulean blue energy surrounding him a dramatic contrast to his orange scales. He hit the larvitar just as its eyes began to glow, disrupting whatever attack it had been attempting. The smaller pokemon was sent flying backwards. As the larvitar was attempting to stand up, Typhaon decided to end it and use the attack that had worked so well in his earlier matches.

He stopped the onslaught of fireballs after a couple of seconds and let the dirt that had been kicked up subside. He was positive that the pokemon had gone down just like the rest. But was surprised that the larvitar was nowhere to be seen. He knew it was still around here, his instincts that had originally alerted him to the other apex predator told him so. So, where was he?

His question was answered as the pokemon shot up from underneath and almost hit him. Jumping back just in time, he fired a full powered ember. But the attack seemed to have little effect on larvitar as he lunged forward through the fire and bit his neck.

"Get him off you! Horus try wing attack again, then gust"

Typhaon heard the bird caw in agreement. The larvitar then managed to overpower him and push him onto the ground while still maintaining the painful grip. He tried scratching the bastard, but his claws did nothing to its armor.

Horus moved fast. He strengthened his wings and tilted to the side, adjusting himself so he wouldn't hit his teammate.

Typhaon saw the bird hit the larvitar on its side, managing to get him off him. He grunted a thanks to the bird.

"Dragon Pulse! Don't let him get up"

Larvitar looked at the bird, annoyed more than hurt by the silly wind being sent his way. The fire pokemon on the other hand was in his way. The collar commanded him to attack the city, and no challengers would stand in his way. He saw it was preparing another attack, although it didn't look like fire. Either way he wasn't about to let it hit him. He punched the dirt in front of him and raised stones from the ground, stopping the attack.

"Typhaon get out of the way!"

Ash clenched his fists as he watched both his pokemon get put on the defensive. The larvitar was shooting out dark pulses at both of his pokemon, not letting either of them get close.

_None of my attacks are working. I'm at a serious type advantage and its defenses are insane._

He watched the collar that was still wrapped around the pokemons neck as it sent out another shock. He needed to get that off if he wanted to end the fight.

"Growlithe, use agility to get in close, then double kick."

Ash turned to where he heard the commands come from and saw the older officer that had been in the booth walking up to him.

"I can help you out and distract that thing, but I don't have the firepower to knock it out. You need to use that dragon pulse to put it to sleep."

Ash nodded and turned back towards the fight.

"Typhaon, help out growlithe, use dragon rush and end it with dragon pulse!"

Both pokemon did as ordered. Zigzagging towards the enemy at breakneck speeds, they managed to avoid getting hit by the dark pulses or rocks larvitar was attacking them with. A stone shot up in front of larvitar, a last defense against the incoming pokemon. Growlithe jumped over the rock with its muscular legs. She tucked herself in as she flipped forward to gain a bit more momentum. As she came down, she infused her feet with energy, and drop kicked larvitar

Typhaon had enough force to bust through the rock that stood in his way, but all his momentum had been dispersed. As soon as the growlithe dropped back and he had a clear line of sight, he blasted the larvitar with the strongest dragon pulse he had ever produced. The force being so great it sent the pokemon flying.

Larvitar hit one of the trees with so much force, it cracked and fell backwards under the pressure, with the pokemon falling forward unconscious.

Ash took a step forward but felt a hand on his shoulder holding him back.

"Wait" ordered Bob, "it's not safe yet. We don't know how long it'll be knocked out for, or if he's the only one."

"Then we need to get that collar off him," argued Ash. "It's hurting him."

"I think my magnemite can override it" Said Clint.

"Then do it"

Clint nodded and sent the pokemon that had been resting in his arms forward.

The magnemite cautiously levitated towards the unconscious larvitar. It lined up its U-shaped magnetic pole up with the black receiver on the back of its neck. As soon as the magnemite touched it, some purple electricity shot from the collar.

"Must have been designed to prevent any kind of tampering," observed Bob. "It's a good thing Magnemites internal physiology can convert most electricity into sustenance, unless it's overloaded"

Ash had an uneasy feeling about all this. This whole thing felt off. Who sends a larvitar to try and attack a city? While their reputation proceeded it, they where no where near the walking destructive forces that Tyranitar where.

_Tyranitar…_

_O shit._

Ash brought his hands up to his mouth to amplify his voice.

"EVERYONE GET BACK!"

"What's going on?" asked Bob. "Why are you calling them back?"

Ash didn't answer, instead choosing to scan the woodline.

_Oh shit, we're fucked._

Coming out of the woods, was a monstrous titan.

Ash had been worried about larvitar, but this beast frightened him. There was a reason there were so few tyranitar in the world. Why all the wild tyranitar were contained to Mt. Silver. Why they were tracked by the rangers to make sure that if they wondered outside of the quarantine, they could be tracked and captured. After a couple of pokemon rangers had found the bodies of a several newbie trainers and their pokemon, the league had even started requiring that you have 5 years' experience minimum before you could go into the mountain.

The brute looked at them, eyes looking murderous (Ash had an odd sense of Deja-vu) and _roared._

The thunderous sound sent chills down his spine. For the first time ever, Ash felt scared for his life.

_How in the hell are we supposed to fight this thing?_

"Please tell me you contacted Giovanni?"

"I left him a message," said Bob, looking just as scared as Ash felt.

"Any chance of back up from the rest of your department?"

Bob gulped, "No, they received a tip from Interpol that someone was going to attack the pokemon center. They directed all our manpower there."

"So, we're on our own," Ash felt his fists clench," great."

"Can we beat it if we attack all at once?" asked Clint.

"Not unless you have more pokemon" responded Ash.

Both Clint and Bob visibly deflated.

No one said another thing, waiting for the tyranitar to make a move.

Tyranitar looked at them with obvious contempt. Ash noticed this one had a collar too. Then it opened its mouth and started gathering orange particles of pure energy. And released it at them.

Ash felt his heart start racing faster than it already had been. He fell to the ground, barely avoiding the intense attack.

The beam shot past them and hit some of the empty buildings, causing a massive explosion.

And then it fired again. Destroying even more buildings.

"We have to do something," screamed Ash. "At this rate it'll destroy the whole city"

Clint was hysterical "This-this isn't my problem. This is my first week on the job. I'm not trained for this!"

"Clint, you need to calm down. Remember the oath you swore-"

"That oath didn't mention anything about getting killed by a damn pseudo-legendary Bob!"

As Ash listened to the two bicker, he couldn't help but think of his father. Ash didn't remember the man much, having been so young when he had died. But he felt like he could understand him now. Why his father has chosen to sacrifice himself to save others. As he looked upon the destruction, fires blazing, people running and screaming, he came upon to the realization the _he _could help stop this. If only to distract the pokemon enough until help came.

He grabbed a pokeball off his belt, stood up and threw it.

The tyranitar had been in the middle of charging another hyper beam, when it was sucked into the ball.

Both Clint and Bob stopped arguing, looking at Ash like he was _out of his mind._

The pokeball didn't even shake once, before bursting apart and being destroyed.

The tyranitar looked at him in disbelief, unable to believe the gall the human had in even_ trying _to catch him with that infernal device.

Even with everything going on, Ash couldn't help but smile at the expression on the tyranitars face.

"Dragon pulse, max strength! Horus just stay back, even if you attack, you won't be able to hurt it."

"I'm gonna need backup you guys" Ash told the two stunned cops.

"O-OK-sure, no problem. Magnemite use sonic boom."

"Growlithe use fire spin"

Up until this point, the other pokemon had just been there, paralyzed, knowing that they stood no chance against the frightening behemoth. But upon hearing their trainers, they jumped into action.

They all fired their attacks in conjunction, their aim true. But even with the pokemon not stopping their attacks, it wasn't enough. It just stood there tanking their attacks, like it didn't even feel it. And now they had its attention.

Typhaon felt himself getting madder. He had about enough of these pokemon acting like he was nothing but a bug. He was going in. He barked a command at the growlithe, telling her to use the same combo that had taken out the smaller one.

Ash watched as his pokemon raced forward, realizing that they were trying the same combo as earlier. Unfortunately, the tyranitar was more experienced and stronger than the larvitar. It used its massive tail to stop the two pokemon in their tracks and flung them backwards. The two hit the ground hard and were separated as they slid across the grass. Ash swore he heard something crack. He saw the tyranitar prepare another hyper beam, looking like it was aiming at his charmander.

Without thinking, he started sprinting.

"ASH WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" yelled Bob, eyes wide, watching the kid running into danger.

"I HAVE TO SAVE HIM!"

Ash jumped forward, grabbing Typhaon, and rolled out of the way. They narrowly avoided the attack that would've blown them to pieces.

Once he felt the intense heat of the attack fade, Ash lifted his head.

"You all right bud?"

"Char," Typhaon murmured weakly.

Ash smiled, looking down at the pokemon he his arms "Good, because I'm not ready to lose you"

He stood, adjusting the charmander so he could hold him easier.

"Alight bud, I need to get you out of here, you've done all you can, and now you need to rest."

"LOOK OUT"

He looked at the tyranitar and saw that it was charging another attack. _Doesn't this thing get tired? _He dashed like a madman, knowing that the beam was trailing them.

_Ok, legs on fire? Check. Lungs feeling like they're about to explode? Check. _There wasn't any place he could really run, and Horus wasn't strong enough to lift them up yet. At this point, staying alive was the number one priority

That's when he saw something flicker into existence. It looked like someone had teleported in with an alakazam. _Finally_. A blast erupted several feet away, the shockwaves causing him to be flung back. The moment of distraction had cost him. He landed several feet apart from Typhaon, having been unable to keep his grip.

The ground near him trembled, indicating the tyranitar was walking closer. Pushing through the agony, refusing to let the pain stop him, Ash Ketchum stood up and faced the beast. _If I'm going to die, I want to face death head on._

The pokemon stopped right in front, almost surprised that Ash had stood up. But it seemed like it had taken that as a challenge and roared in his face. Ash screamed back defiantly, unwilling to back down from the nightmarish beast. It opened its jaw and began coalescing energy for the attack that would end his life.

He heard Horus shriek something in the background and felt the sudden rush of air as two giant objects raced past him. Eyes wide, he watched the struggle in front of him unfold.

Two enormous pokemon, nearly matching tyranitar in size, battled the beast back. Together, they were able to put the tyranitar on the defensive and keep it from firing off any more hyper beams. The huge purple pokemon swung its gigantic tail, and the one that looked like it was covered in red plates of armor swung its massive glowing arm. The two hits collided against the monster, and for the first time that night, Ash heard the tyranitar cry out in pain.

"Are you all right young man?" asked a deep, dispassionate voice.

Ash stared in disbelief at the man who had walked up next to him. Giovanni Sakaki, the most feared and respected gym leader in all of Kanto for the last ten years. It was highly speculated that he could even defeat Sabrina, the most powerful psychic in the world, with his fearsome pokemon. He was rarely seen in the Viridian city gym, preferring to focus on his many business endeavors. Most trainers even avoided earning the earth badge, preferring to fight at one of minor gyms, rather than face his wrath. Dressed in a tailored three-piece suit and an unbuttoned black overcoat, the man looked like he belonged in a board meeting more than a battlefield.

"I don't like repeating myself, so I'll ask you one more time. Are you all right?"

"Ye-yea" Ash stuttered, still in awe of the man.

"Close your mouth, its rude to gawk and it's unbefitting for a trainer your age."

"Sorry… sir"

Ash turned his attention back to the battle raging in front of him. Now that the esteemed leader was here, his nerves calmed down enough to assess what was happening in front of him. He recognized the massive creatures as Rhyperior and Nidoking, two of Giovannis' more prominent pokemon. Watching them during the annual exhibition matches that the league hosted had often been some of the highlights of his year. And now here they were, combating the titan that had nearly killed him.

Ash recalled Typhaon, wanting to put him in suspended animation as quickly as possible in order to keep his injuries from getting any worse. Whistling to Horus, the bird who had been helplessly flying above them, he descended and landed next to its trainer. With both his pokemon out of harms way, Ash felt a sense of relieve on having both his pokemon close to him.

Now feeling more like a spectator than a combatant, Ash began watching and analyzing the fighting happening in front of them. He noted how Giovanni gave no orders, instead trusting two of his oldest pokemon to handle the situation accordingly. The two seemed to have plenty of experience fighting alongside each other, since they were coordinated in their attacks and there was never a moment in which they were in each other's way. Each movement was calculated. No energy wasted from the two. Each punch, kick, and tail swing was powerful and precise in how much energy was expended. Being closer than he was to the action than he was comfortable with, he could feel every impact reverberate in his bones. It almost felt like it was too much for him to keep up with. This battle was one Ash had only ever dreamed of witnessing. Still, as a testament to its strength, the two ground pokemon struggled to gain the upper hand against the seemingly unrelenting juggernaut.

"What a nuisance" Ash heard Giovanni say to himself. While he knew he could learn a lot from the fight, he also wanted to try and grasp an understanding of the man next to him. Surprised at the older man's actions, Ash watched Giovanni reach for a pokeball inside his coat and released the pokemon.

"Sleep powder on all three," he commanded the exeggutor. "They tired that beast out enough."

It felt surreal, watching these enormous pokemon succumb to the effects of one of the most useful attacks accessible to grass types.

"That wouldn't have worked if my exeggutor had been any weaker or if its powder had been any less potent." He heard the gym leader say. He recalled his sleeping pokemon, while leaving the grass type out. Giovanni walked over to the downed tyranitar and started examining it, with Ash following him.

"How curious" he muttered as he examined the collar that was still releasing shocks across the sleeping pokemons body. Ash waved the magnemite over, along with the other two officers who had been completely useless throughout most of the fight.

With the collar taken off and the tyranitar giving so signs of waking up. Ash began to grow a bit uncomfortable with the silence.

"So, what's going to happen to it now? Questioned Ash.

"Oh, well we're going to-"

"I was asking our resident gym leader," interrupted Ash.

Giovanni raised his eyebrow, his interest peaked in the young man who seemed to be indifferent to the police officer.

"My initial reaction was to capture him and use him as my own. But he's too old, too wild, and I don't have the patience or time to break him in."

"Well, what about the larvitar sir," said Clint, pointing to the downed pokemon that hadn't moved since they had knocked it out earlier.

"Ah yes, I was surprised at seeing the fully grown tyranitar, considering the message I received said that the pre-evolution was on the loose. I never seem to have the time to travel to Mt. Silver to capture one, and seeing as how this one is younger and still able to be tamed, I shall be taking this one as my own."

_NO! _Ash's heart dropped. Even though he knew it was irrational, he wanted the larvitar. _He_ had been the one to alert them that it was coming. _He_ had been the one to who had taken control of the situation and knocked out the rock pokemon. Watching Giovanni start walking over to smaller pokemon, Ash knew he had to do something, fast.

"What the"- Giovanni's eyes widened in surprise as he watched the pokemon get sucked into the pokeball, and be successfully captured.

"Are you sure that's wise young man?" Giovanni looked at the youngster, scrutinizing him.

Ash walked over, pain shooting throughout his entire body, picked up the pokeball, and put it on its belt clip. He needed to remember to buy some more pokeballs. Turning to face the older man, he felt the need to stand his ground.

"My Typhaon was the one who made sure we were ready for these guys. Typhaon was the one who delivered the knock-out blow. While I appreciate you saving my life, _I'm_ taking the larvitar"

Giovanni smirked, he liked the spunk the kid was showing. "Typhaon is your charmander, correct? Did you get him from a breeder?

"No," answered Ash, "I got him from Professor Oak."

"Ash Ketchum I presume? Don't look so surprised. It's been years since Samuel sponsored three kids. Once word got out, my interest was piqued. Gary resembles his grandfather when he was younger, and you're not a female, so that excludes young Midori, so by deduction, that leaves you. Although, I do find it curious as to why you choose the most difficult to raise of the three, especially since rumor has is that Samuel managed to procure a riolu."

"He's the only one I ever had any interest in training," responded ash defensibly

"Is that staravia yours as well? And now you've captured a larvitar" Giovanni commented.

"Your point being sir?" Ash wasn't sure what conclusions the older man was reaching, but he didn't think it would be a good idea for a gym leader to think negatively of him.

"Just observing on how you've managed to procure two of the most hostile and dangerous pokemon species in the world. One could go so far to say that you deliberately went out of your way to capture them. Quite frankly, it's fascinating.

OK, now Ash was starting to get confused, "Why is that sir? I'm sure, given the chance, that most trainers would do the same thing. And just because they're more _troublesome_ than normal doesn't mean they can't be trained"

Giovanni looked to the burning building in the distance, watching as the first responders and their water type pokemon fought to control and contain the fires caused by the beast.

"The way I see things, the way I see life, I see it as a struggle. And there's a great deal of reward I have gained coming to that understanding - that existence is a struggle. Most trainers never travel out of their comfort zone. But you" he addressed Ash, "You have chosen to seek out these difficulties, embracing a life of challengers and obstacles."

Ash couldn't help but feel a little embarrassed under the praise the gym leader seemed to be giving him. He felt the heat seep into his cheeks. He had never seen it from that perspective, he had always just thought he had an odd taste in deadly pokemon

"Stop by my gym in 2 days, once your pokemon are fully healed, 9 A.M sharp. I am a busy man after all." With that dismissal, the gym leader teleported away with the alakazam that had been on standby.

_Well that was certainly, interesting. I wonder what he wants to see me for?_ With the effects of everything happening and the weight of two injured pokemon on his belt finally catching up to him, he decided to get back to the pokemon center. Leaving behind two extremely baffled Viridian City officers

* * *

"Boss, please, let us explain," implored a gruff voice on the other side of the call. "Someone let slip the details about the operation to the VPD. Officer Jenny and her men were there waiting to ambush us. We lucked out on our guy on the inside giving us the heads up in time before we made our move. If we had continued, we would had lost too many men and resources just in the fighting, so I made the decision to call off the mission."

"I don't like this setback Petrel. Capturing those beasts and bringing them here to serve as a distraction was risky enough. Attacking the pokemon center was solely for the opportunity to obtain some of the pre-evolved pokemon from the trainers who had stayed within the confines of the city. And now you're telling me we wasted those assets? And why did no one tell me that a larvitar was also ensnared?"

"Sorry Boss," replied the purple haired man. "I got too excited and developed tunnel vision in regards to the mission. I promise it won't happen again."

"See that it doesn't. I want no mistakes in regards to our operations in Mt. Moon. Brock has grown suspicious to our activities there and has begun investigating, so you need to practice extreme caution" with that, the man ended the call. Walking over to the bar, he poured himself a drink of his favorite scotch and thought over the events of the night. His thoughts lingering on the rookie trainer that nearly died to protect his pokemon.

* * *

"Alright you two, ready to meet the new guy?" Ash asked the pokemon standing with him at the edge of Viridian City. After going back to the pokemon center and handing his injured pokemon over to the night staff, Ash had finally gotten them back late in the day. While he could have waited to welcome the new guy, especially since he didn't have a good method for _actually _dealing with said pokemon, he wanted to get started on making the larvitar comfortable around him, especially since he planned to make him a key part of the team.

"Wait for my signal, I don't want you guys getting trigger happy, especially you Typhaon." Ash wished Typhaon had even looked the tiniest bit ashamed, considering he had already scared off several pokemon who had been curious at their presence. Nodding to Typhaon on his right and Horus to his left, Ash released the pokemon.

The first thing Ash noticed was the color, under the cover of night ash hadn't noticed the pale-green plating that made up most of its body. Or the tail that seemed to have a cone-like pattern, almost as if it was meant for drilling. It looked around, seemingly distraught with the unfamiliar surroundings. When it spotted them, he growled.

"You can relax, I'm not going to hurt you. Here, you must be hungry, want a berry?" Ash had initially been unsure on how to handle the larvitar. But after spending some of his downtime reading up on the creature, he had learned they had a general disposition to love berries, or anything sweet really. Being an evolutionary line that was confined to Mt. Silver and the mountain range it encompassed, berries were difficult to come by. And since their diets were so mineral heavy, the craving for the nutrients found in the sweet berries were intensified much more in these pokemon than normal. Evidence being that as soon as larvitar smelled the berry in his outstretched hand, he gobbled it up. Ash laughed when the pokemon looked sad at having finished the fruit so fast.

"Here you can have another one, but not too many," he said as he reached for another Mago berry. "Eating more than a couple at a time will upset your digestive system." Larvitar held the berry in between his arms, taking smaller bites in order to savor it more. It looked to Ash like it was smiling. _Might as well get a reading on the guy._

_Larvitar- The Rock Skin Pokemon - Larvitar is born deep under the ground. To come up to the surface, this Pokémon, must eat its way through the soil above. Until it does, larvitar cannot see its parents. This Larvitar stands at 2 ft tall, weighing 160 lbs. Its ability is guts, hidden ability is sand veil, which allows it to move freely during a sandstorm. The moves this larvitar knows are screech, tackle, rock throw, bite, dig, dark pulse, sandstorm, stone edge, and iron tail._

"Hmm not bad at all. You have a bit of variety, and remembering last night, you seemed to like mixing up your attacks. We're just going to have to figure out your style and adapt accordingly," he told the pokemon. Larvitar just gave him a blank look. Internally, Ash groaned. _Are all the pokemon I catch going to give me a hard time?_

"Look, I'm not really sure how you ended up so far away from your home, or why you had that collar on your neck last night. I've tried asking around, but nobody seems to be able to give me an answer. Now I have the option of turning you over to the rangers and they can take you back home, but I would prefer if you came with me." Larvitar at least seemed like he was paying attention to Ash. "I'm not going to lie, you were fucking tough," chuckled Ash. "So tough in fact that I was afraid for a bit that we weren't going to able to bring you down. But we did, and we brought the big guy down too." At this, larvitars eyes widened. "But you both lacked control. Your tactics and moves were too sloppy. And you didn't use your strength to its fullest potential. I know you guys spend your lives fighting, always looking for the next challenge. I want to offer you the chance to fight among the best. To be an unforgiving storm against the titans that walk our world. And I promise that as long as you always give me 100%, I will _never _turn my back on you. We'll face every challenge, together."

Larvitar looked unconvinced, but then Typhaon walked over to him and headbutted him. _ What the hell? _What began next was probably the oddest conversation he had ever been a part of. It began as a series of grunts and growls, and devolved into a tame fight for dominance. Neither of them used any attacks, they just punched and kicked each other until they one of them jumped on top of the other and started rolling around on the ground. It seemed to finally be decided when Typhaon pinned down larvitar on its stomach and refused to let him up until he conceded. Ash couldn't help but smile as he watched Typhaon help larvitar get up, looking about as smug as a pokemon could look. Larvitar looked over to Ash and nodded.

"Great" Ash beamed. "Now it's time for a nickname, and I have the perfect one picked out for you" Larivtar just seemed to accept the inevitable, still looking at Typhaon like he wanted to go another round. "I'm going to name you Ares." Typhaon and Horus had no reaction to the out of place name, used to the trainer's odd fascination with myths and folktales. Meanwhile the name caused larvitar to finally look him in the eye.

"He was known as the god of war in ancient times. Back when people still prayed to the gods for strength against their enemies, Ares would be the one they turned to. The problem with Ares was that he loved the battle, the ability for soldiers to test their mettle, he even loved the brutality of war. If ever there was an embodiment for the chaos and savagery of war, it was him. In our world, according to the old ways, names have power. By naming you this, I want you to embody the entity of raw power and destruction that you will bring onto our adversaries."

While Ash knew he might have gone a little over the top with selling the name to his larvitar, it had worked. Larvitar had ben captivated by his little spiel, and by the end of it, seemed to love the name just as much as Ash did.

"So, it's settled then, Ares it is." Ash rubbed his new pokémon's head, trying to get used to the texture of the rocky skin that almost resembled armor. "We'll get started on training you tomorrow, after our meeting with Giovanni. But it's getting late, and I'm hungry, so let's go get some burgers."

_8:45 AM, well I'm only a bit early. It's a good thing we went to sleep early last night, especially with all of us still being tired from the night before._

Ash stood outside and inspected the inconspicuous structure. With all the notoriety the gym received, he had kind of expected something larger and grander than what was in front of him. If anything, it seemed to resemble a large warehouse more than any kind of facility sanctioned by the league. The only thing that gave it away was the simple sign in front of the building that stated that this was the Viridian City gym.

Taking in a deep breath and bracing himself for whatever was about to come, he walked in. It wasn't that he wasn't excited about being able to have a one on one meeting with Giovanni, in fact he was ecstatic about that part. It was more of the fact on why Giovanni had demanded he meet him. He felt like he hadn't made the best impression by just taking Ares when Giovanni had clearly wanted him. Looking around, the inside seemed to resemble the outside insofar as there were very little personal touches. It felt more like he had walked into a place of business rather than a place where pokemon battled.

Walking up to the receptionist who was typing something on the computer, he opened his mouth to greet the guy before he cut him off.

"Please proceed through the main hallway to the arena, Giovanni is waiting for you and he does not like to be kept waiting"

"Err- thanks I guess." Ash followed the hallway down about twenty feet until it opened up, revealing a pretty generic looking battlefield that could be found around most of Kanto. "Don't know why I keep expecting something impressive" he mumbled to himself. Typhaon on the other hand just seemed to take it all in, seeing as this was the first time he had stepped into an official Indigo League Gym. He spotted Giovanni standing near him, looking out onto the battlefield.

"I was debating on whether you would show up at all," Giovanni addressed him.

"Well sir, I'm not usually one to back down from anything. But I gotta ask, is there a particular reason why you wanted to meet me?" Ash's curiosity was starting to get the better of him.

"I'm curious as to how exactly it was that you knew when and where those pokemon were going to show up?" Giovanni asked, still not bothering to look at him. "Especially since there have been no reports about a tyranitar and larvitar rampaging through the countryside. Even Officer Jenny had trouble finding any kind of evidence indicating that they were going to attack the city, and this was after the fact."

"I didn't have anything to do with it, if that's what you're insinuating." Ash defended himself. "Typhaon sensed them coming while I was sleeping, and dragged me out to confront them. But I don't think even he knew that the tyranitar would be there."

"Sensed them you say?" Giovanni asked while taking a closer look at his charmander. "How _unusual_. Especially since no one else seemed to sense the abnormality."

At this, Ash felt a bit surprised. "No one sir? Not even you? What about some of the other high-ranked trainers that live in the city?"

"I was in Saffron when I received the distress signal from the VPD, requesting my presence back here in Viridian," He remarked ."As to these other 'high ranked' trainers' I'm not entirely sure as to why their pokemon weren't as distressed as yours seemed to be. But perhaps your charmanders fight-or-flight instincts are more sensitive than others. Or perhaps it felt a need to defend its territory against another predator," Giovanni stated as he continued to observe his charmander. "Well, the _how _matters less now that the danger has passed, in no small part thanks to you.

"ME?" Exclaimed Ash. "All I did was take out Ares. I didn't even manage to _hurt _the big guy. If you hadn't stepped in when you did, I would be 6 ft under alongside Typhaon." He countered.

Giovanni let a flicker of surprise cross his at the mention of the name Ash had chosen for his larvitar, but had remained silent during the rest of his rebuttal. "While I don't disagree with you, I would be doing you a disservice by not pointing out that your contributions did in fact help save lives last night."

"But how?" asked Ash, still in disbelief at the commendation the older man was giving him.

"You acted and took charge when those imbeciles- "Ash's eyes widened at the casual insult- "froze and were negligent in their duty. While no one would expect them to be able to defeat a fully grown tyranitar, they were derelict in their duty and did next to nothing to help you defend my city. Which is why I recommended that you be rewarded for your efforts."

Giovanni walked over to a portion of the wall that held a single pokeball. He picked it up and stared at the ball for a couple seconds, almost as if he was second guessing himself.

"Officer Jenny was planning on giving you a monetary reward, but I informed her that I would take care of your compensation." He turned back around and started walking back towards Ash. "I planned for years and gave quite a large contribution to the Opelucid Academy in order to obtain this pokemon. I had meant for him to be a gift for my son." _Giovanni has a son? _"But he refused my gift, instead he chose to use the pokemon his mother captured for him."

"Well thank you sir, but I-I still don't understand, why give _me_ the pokemon?" Asked Ash, he understood the reward part, but he wanted to know why he was being given a pokemon that seemed awfully _personal_.

Giovanni seemed pensive, as if he was deciding to give him an honest answer or not. "Truthfully, you surprised me. Most novices would have run scared at the sight of a tyranitar. Most professional trainers go years without ever going up to Mt. Silver, preferring never to put themselves in that precarious position. But _you, you _stood your ground, and now you own a dragon for your efforts."

Ash didn't really know how to respond. He took the pokeball that Giovanni was holding out for him. While he had received praise in his life, mainly through his mother and Professor Oak, there were few people alive that could say Giovanni offered them some kind words.

Wait did he just say _dragon?_

"Any other reasons are my own. Now here take the pokemon and go, I have another meeting in half an hour that requires my attention.


	3. Chapter 3

**Pokemon On Hand**

**Typhaon- Charmander**

**Horus - Staravia**

**Ares- Larvitar**

The front clerk of the breeder's boutique looked up from her magazine when she heard the doorbell chime.

"Hello how can I help- Hey it's you again! Did you forget something the last time you were here?"

"Not at all," responded Ash. "Managed to get my hands on a dragon and a rock-ground type. So, I need two more bowls, and enough food for three weeks to get through the Viridian Forest, please and thank you Abby."

"Wow!" Abby remarked, sounding impressed. "Well is it a dual type or just a dragon? Need to know in order to give you the right kind of food."

"Just a dragon," answered Ash. "I haven't had a chance to release him yet, but I scanned his pokeball to get some superficial readings."

"Ok then, give me a second to go get it." She walked to the backroom and came back a few minutes later holding a couple bags of dry kibble. "That's going to be 1000 credits."

His eyes bulged. "1000? What is it made of gold?"

"Well the dragon food is packed with almost double the amount of vitamins, and the food for rock types are packed with double the amount of minerals," she explained sympathetically. "Dragons aren't just notoriously difficult to train, they're also expensive to maintain."

Ash sighed and handed over his smart card. It would be worth it he told himself. He would just have to battle more trainers and participate in the occasional local tournament more often than he would have liked.

It wasn't that he hadn't thought about sticking to the trainer's diet, which mostly consisted of eating easily packaged food and general pokemon food. But during his studies in health and nutrition, he had learned that pokemon operated best when eating food that was tailored to the species or type, kind of like when athletes ate more whole foods packed with protein and certain carbs rather than fast food. Too many trainers made the mistake of thinking about food as an afterthought instead of treating it as part of the training regime.

"Well I appreciate it" Ash told the girl as he put the food in the side pockets of his rucksack. Waving a goodbye to the girl, Ash walked out and walked towards the edge of the city, to the same place he had greeted his larvitar last night.

Feeling the four occupied pokeballs, his thoughts were invaded by how fast his team was filling up. He wasn't complaining about the two new powerful additions, more of the fact that he hadn't even had his first gym battle yet, and there were only two slots left on the team. Even though he had originally planned to look for the elusive heracross or scyther that inhabited the forest, he felt like he should postpone catching anymore pokemon. At least until he felt more comfortable and confident with his current team.

While the pokemon league was extremely firm on the 6-pokemon rule for beginners, there was a way to increase the amount you could carry. After winning a third badge from a major gym, the amount of pokemon you could carry was increased by two, and subsequently thereafter until you topped out at 12 pokemon on hand. This allowed trainers to have several pokemon on reserve in order to serve a variety of roles and functions. Although it was highly discouraged, seeing as how expensive it could get to carry around and feed that many pokemon.

Finally reaching the small clearing, he noticed that the pokemon that were there scattered on sight of him. _They must remember Typhaon_. Ash smiled as he released said pokemon and the others, thinking about Typhaons less than hospitable antics.

"Hey guys" Ash addressed the group as he took the time to rub both the heads of Typhaon and Ares. He felt that the larvitar was warming up to him, especially since he had fed them so well yesterday. "Well I know this is a bit sooner than expected, but we got a new member of the team."

"Char?" Typhaon asked incredulously. They had just gotten the green one a couple days go. Was his trainer just throwing pokeballs at anything that moved?

"Yea I know, but he was a gift, and I wasn't about to say no. Besides, he's going to be a powerful addition to the team, same as Ares."

Ares huffed at that, he doubted there was anything that could present a challenge to him, besides the fire lizard anyway.

Ash grinned "Oh trust me, I think you guys are going to be best friends."

Horus squawked, which Ash took as 'Get on with it.'

"Alright, you guys ready?" Hearing an agreement from everyone, he released the pokemon Giovanni had gifted him. '

The flash dissipated and left a small grayish- green pokemon in its wake. It seemed to be bipedal, with rather small limbs and a short tail. He noticed a slightly curved horn that reminded him of staravias plume. Its crimson eyes were surrounded by a darker shade of green, alongside a short-rounded snout and what looked to be a dark lime green collar. If Ash didn't know any better, he would think that this pokemon derived from the same evolutionary ancestor as Ares. But perhaps the most distinctive trait were the two, nearly flat ivory tusks that protruded from the sides of the mouth.

It seemed disoriented, struggling to stand up and stay on its feet, making Ash wonder as to how long it had been stuck in that pokeball. It noticed Ash and immediately grew excited.

"I don't think he means any harm, let's just see what he does." As soon as he finished telling the others to stand down, the pokemon jumped into his arms and began nuzzling him. Giggling at the pokemon that was now crawling on top of him, he decided it would be a good idea to sit down. He grabbed the pokemon and held it out in front of him so he could talk with it.

"Hey little guy, I'm Ash, your new trainer. And these"- Ash gestured to the three bewildered team members - "are my pokemon." Both Typhaon and Ares waved while Horus chittered a greeting. The pokemon got out of his arms and began introducing himself to the others. "Ok, let's get a reading on this guy."

_Axew-_ _The Tusk Pokemon- They mark their territory by leaving gashes in trees with their tusks. They play with each other by knocking their large tusks together. Their tusks break sometimes, but they grow back so quickly that it isn't a concern. This axew stands at 2 ft tall, weighing approximately 40 lbs. Its ability is Mold Breaker, which allows it to hit other pokemon with certain moves regardless of its abilities. Hidden ability Moxie, which causes it to increase its attack power in battle every time it knocks out an opponent. The Moves this axew knows are dragon rage, dual chop, slash, focus energy, shockwave, poison jab, razor wind, night slash, bite, brick break, and aqua tail._

"Wow, Giovanni wasn't kidding when he said he paid a lot of money for you. Moxie? I feel bad for whoever the breeder was to get you that ability," he said out loud. Looking up, he noticed that his four pokemon seemed to be playing tag with each other. Axew even managing to climb one of the trees in order to tag Horus. He smiled, _Glad they can get along_. "Might as well look up more information on you, seeing as how I barely know anything about you."

He spent the next hour familiarizing himself with some of the basics on the species. One of the most interesting pieces of information he found was that axew's _had _to break their tusks often before they fully evolved, if not, the tusks would become malformed. Another tidbit was that the fully evolved form was one of the few dragon types that couldn't fly, instead becoming extremely adept climbers in the heavily dense forest and mountain regions of Unova. Apparently, this evolutionary quirk had been caused by their intense rivalry with the pseudo- legendary of the Unova region, Hydriegon. The rival apex predator/ dragon had conquered the skies, so in return Haxorus had been forced to remain landlocked, for fear of being hunted by the territorial rival. It seemed that while they were rare, Haxorus were the signature pokemon of the Opelucid City mayor, Drayden, and its gym leader, Iris.

"Wow," he muttered under his breath, "And I thought Charizard and Tyranitar looked fierce, but a Haxorus looks imposing." At the mention of its final evolution, axew stumbled and let himself get tagged by Ares. Getting back up, he walked over to Ash. "Do you want to see what you'll look like one day?" Axew enthusiastically shook his head yes. Ash pulled up several pictures of Drayden's Haxorus, who had been one of the first to submit information regarding Haxorus to the international community.

Axew's crimson eyes lit up, the pictures serving as a catalyst to his deepest desires. He remembered how powerful his mother had been. She had protected the village he had been born in when the flying three- headed one had attacked. She managed to fend it off on her own, even when it had clearly been stronger than her. He would evolve, become strong, and make her proud.

"I can help you become strong and evolve," Ash stated. "If you join us on our journey, we'll fight the best there is in this world. Alongside these three, we'll grow strong together. While I don't doubt that there will be setbacks, I promise you that I'll be there alongside you every step of the way. So, what do you say?

Axew had already made up his mind on the human. After speaking with the fire and rock pokemon, he had already decided to follow the boy who would willingly sacrifice himself if need be to save others. Besides, he knew that these two were strong, and if he stayed, then he would get strong to.

"Awesome" Ash proclaimed as he watched axew shake his head yes. "And do you want a nickname? I've given the rest of the guys one, but if you don't, I'll understand."

Axew thought about it for a second. He had always just known himself as axew, its who he was. But the human seemed to mean well, and if it made him happy, then he would take a new name.

"Hmm, how about Nidhogg? He was a mythological dragon and was a symbol for the destruction that would follow when the cosmos fell back into the chaos from which they were created." Axew scrunched his face and vigorously shook his head no. Ash began naming off quite a bit of mythological figures, wanting to keep in style of the team, but axew shook his head no at every single one of them.

"Hmm, maybe something a bit unconventional then? Since one of the first things you did was play when you got out of your ball, how about I name you after a mythological figure from one of my favorite video games." Axew gave no indication as to whether he would accept it, so Ash continued, "Its Kratos, he was a character in an epic game series that lasted over a decade, and by the end of it, he became the god of war. He also happens to be an actual figure in mythology. He was the son of two titans, was the personification of strength, and was the brother to the goddess of victory." Ash let a sigh of relief out when he saw axew shake his head yes at the name. Out of all his pokemon, Axew had taken the longest to name by far. "Kratos it is then," Ash told the dragon as he rubbed his head affectionately.

"All right guys"- Ash announced as he stood up- "let's have a quick lunch and then we can train for the rest of the day. We have a tournament that I want to participate in tomorrow before we leave the city, so get ready to be more exhausted than you've ever been."

While his pokemon ate, Ash found a clearing nearby that they could use to train. Despite it not being ideal, it would be enough to get the job done, away from prying eyes. He took his time in determining the length of the longest part of the clearing and drew lines into the dirt which measured out to 25 ft. Then he marked a couple spots while making sure they were spaced out enough. Looking around, he found a small 5 ft long log that he managed to drag (with an absurd amount of effort) back into the clearing. After taking a step back and visualizing how the training was going to go, he gave himself a satisfactory nod. He walked over to his pack and pulled out some gym shorts and running shoes and changed clothes behind a couple bushes. Let no one ever say he didn't go the distance when training.

"Alright guys, we're going to be starting off with shuttle runs, then going into log pulling, boulder flipping, and after that we're going to practice some attacks. And I don't want to hear any whining since I'm going to be doing everything right beside you."

Ash knew it was a little unorthodox to train alongside your pokemon, but after watching several interviews with Koga and Bruno, he had made the decision a long time ago to train with his pokemon. Even Professor Oak had recommended the training methodology to him, saying that when he had been younger, he would regularly exercise with his pokemon. Blood, sweat, and tears helped to build the strongest bonds.

Horus was the trickiest to get started, with him being the only airborne member of the group, but Ash had something in mind. Grabbing some paracord out of his pack, he assembled a makeshift harness and strapped a medium sized rock that had been laying around onto the birds back. He then gave instructions to Horus, telling him to fly through the woods for as long as he could. Hopefully the creative resistance training would help with his speed and maneuverability.

Once Horus flew into the woods (with obvious difficulty), they got started. In hindsight, he should have predicted that he would be the fastest out of the group and have the most endurance. While Typhaon had been right on his heel for most of it, Kratos seemed to genuinely struggle. It seemed like the dragon had never trained in its life, which thinking back on it should have been obvious. Ares seemed to have tried sprinting, but his heavy body was just too dense to be sprinting for long. At which point Ash adjusted and let him rest for 2 minutes every time he finished 25 ft, using the stopwatch feature on his watch to keep track of the time. After about a half hour of doing this, they switched over to the next exercise.

Ash had Ares use his stone edge to create some makeshift targets, then he had him use iron tail several times on one of the constructs in order to break it into smaller pieces. Ares was still nowhere strong enough to just break them apart with pure strength, like his final evolution could, so this would do for now. Once he found a couple of pieces he thought were heavy enough, he set them up at the start of the 25 ft line. With the log, he tied some rope to it and made a bowline on the other end. One by one, each of them dragged the log as far as they could, taking turns and switching over to flipping the heaviest piece of the destroyed boulder afterwards. Ares had the advantage here, his small powerful body allowing him to drag the log across the field for the whole 25 ft every time. Both Typhaon and Kratos struggled with the task, with the charmander only able to drag the log for ten feet at a time, and the dragon about 5 ft before collapsing each time. Not that Ash could really judge them to harshly, only barely managing to match Kratos for distance towards the end of it.

Ash gave his pokemon a chance to rest after another half hour of tough training. They might not have any fancy equipment, but Ash would be damned if he let that stop them from making progress.

"Alright now we're going to practice your attacks," he addressed the exhausted group of pokemon. "Typhaon, you're going to alternate, between learning Metal claw, and practicing dragon pulse and rapid fire for the rest of the afternoon." He had researched the move since he had planned to challenge Brock first. It was one of the easier attacks to learn early on, and the repetition would come in handy if Ash wanted to try and teach him dragon claw down the road. He just had to use his claws to scratch a hard surface. The repeated actions would eventually cause his claws to harden naturally, taking on the properties of steel in order to dent the solid surface.

The true power of dragon pulse was unfortunately still eluding Typhaon. While he had used the move in order to defeat Area, it had been his rage and the heat of battle that had made it effective, two things that they shouldn't grow to rely on. It was still coming out as an uncontrolled beam of energy, instead of the compact destructive sphere it was supposed to be. But they would continue working on it. He refused to give up trying what could arguably be one of his strongest moves

"Ares, we're a little too close to the city to practice your sandstorm, so we'll save that for another day. Today we're going to focus on your control for stone edge and rock throw, as well as your power behind dark pulse and iron tail. I want you to create straight ling of rocks that are larger and denser than you've ever made them before using stone edge, then use iron tail and dark pulse to destroy them. From what I've seen, you pretty much like to stand in one spot during a fight, so later we're going to work on your endurance."

"Horus, I want you to work on your double team and quick attack/ wing attack combo." Most people never seemed to understand the complexities behind using double team, merely seeing it as a strategic maneuverer. The truth was that for any pokemon starting to learn the move, it was difficult to maintain more than one copy of itself. Most pokemon had inactive psychic capabilities, so when using this technique, it strained a pokemons ability to focus. Creating and maintaining the illusions in combat got even trickier, since there were various layers of complexities involved. But with practice and time, he trusted the staravia to be able to create multiple copies in order to utilize them in battles.

"Kratos, I'm going to have you practice on your attacks. I'll call out each one, and I want you to try the attack on this target, after that we'll gauge where you're at and go from there. Sound good?" The dragon nodded and stepped up to the boulder. One by one, Kratos tried every attack on the boulder. None of them even left a mark on the rocky surface. He had been hoping with Kratos being a dragon type, he would pack more of a punch using the dragon type moves. But in the end, they had been his weakest attacks. The dragon rage looking even more pathetic than what Typhaons ember had looked when first starting out. The teal and violet tendrils of draconic flames fading before even reaching its target. Dual chop was a bit better since Kratos had to physically hit the target, but that didn't stop it from being abysmally weak. It had looked almost like scratch, except for the tinge of cyan that enveloped his hands when performing the attack.

Ash grinned at the hand fate had dealt him. He didn't care that his dragon was the weakest member of his team by far, he would turn the youngling into a powerhouse. Dragons were exceptionally rare among trainers. The moves were incredibly difficult to master and most of the information surrounding dragons were zealously guarded by the clans. It's one of the reasons why there were so few dragon masters in the world, the Indigo League Champion Lance being the _only _Dragon Master in all of Kanto.

"Hey, it's alright buddy," he reassured the dejected pokemon. "I didn't expect you to be some uber-powerful pokemon that could one shot anyone and everything. This just means I can join you on every step of the way to reach your full potential." Pulling out a berry from his side pouch, he handed it to Kratos, who cheered up a bit when eating it. Ash touched his forehead to the dragons, "I don't care how much effort it takes, we're going to get strong, together. Now c'mon we got some training to do."

For the rest of the afternoon, Ash trained alongside his pokemon. He used Horus and himself as target practice, which in the end was helpful to all his pokemon. He gave some advice on how he thought they should perform certain moves. And towards the end of their training session he pitied each of them against one another at least once (Although Ares and Typhaon decided to go overboard and went 3 rounds against each other). While there wasn't some abnormal growth in their power levels, it was putting in the work that counted. Becoming strong wouldn't be an overnight miracle, it would take months of consistently working towards their goals, and getting a bit better each day. That's where they would see the results.

After feeding the exhausted group, he recalled Horus and Ares, and headed towards the pokemon center to get a good night's rest. They deserved it after all.

* * *

Sitting in bleachers provided, Ash watched as people trickled into the plaza and walked towards the sign-up table. The bleachers filling up slowly with spectators and participants alike.

The sun was just begging to rise above the skyline, with rays slowly creeping and shining on the two battlefields in front of him. Cool chilly weather still seemed to pervade the areas the suns warmth couldn't reach, with most people wearing some sort of light jacket or sweater. Kratos seeming to enjoy the weather, pretending he was breathing out some sort of attack onto Typhaon, emitting the clearly visible water vapor from his mouth onto the amused pseudo-dragon. Taking note at the obvious police presence at the sanctioned event, Ash's excitement for the Bi-weekly tournament began to grow.

Every city contained a Palestra of sorts, a set of standard battlegrounds located in one of the town squares that trainers and pokemon owners could go and train daily. But while every trainer was a pokemon owner, not every pokemon owner was a trainer. And since the city helped maintain the grounds, even non-trainers could participate. This allowed battling to become a more recreational sport among the city denizens, to help keep interest alive in the league during the lull in between exhibition matches, various regional tournaments, etc.

A couple of years ago, Celadon had grown enough interest in daily battling that they started hosting a local tournament on the weekends. While it wasn't televised and the winners didn't gain any sort of prestige, it was a fun activity to go watch and participate. It slowly started gaining prominence, boosting the economic growth of local shops and eateries. So much so, that the other metropoles in Kanto started replicating the tournaments and saw similar results. It also helped that it was an easy place for league-sanctioned trainers to gain some experience battling and money. With the tournaments splitting up most trainers by number of badges in order to keep it fair to those who weren't trainers.

The local communities usually took turns hosting the events, sending hosts and announcers to help keep the experience civil and enjoyable. Sometimes local shop owners would even sponsor and put up prizes for people to win. But one of the biggest draws was the cash prize. Every person participating would shell out 150 credits, instead of the usual 250 that the league mandated. And since it was a winner-take-all style event, it was too tempting an opportunity to pass up.

The atmosphere was pleasant. The aroma of coffee and hot cocoa wafting through the air. Children laughing, chasing each other playing with pokemon in the fading lamplight. Vendors in the local market stalls selling merchandize and breakfast sweets to those walking pasts. Several families were sprawled out on blankets on the west side of one of battlefields, on the lush green grounds provided

Ash noticed a blonde man dressed in casual wear walk over to them with a microphone in hand.

"Ladies and Gentleman" Boomed a voice from the various speakers stationed around the plaza. "Today's amateur tournament will begin shortly. Let me just take a minute to explain the set-up so we're all on the same page." He told the eager crowds. "Today we have 16 participants for the one badge and under tournament. This will be a single elimination style tournament. We still have two more tournaments to host today, so every battle well be one vs one and the finale will be to. Usually we would at least have the semi- finals and finals be two vs two, but we didn't expect these many trainers to sign up. Each match ends in either knockout or when the trainer surrenders. As of right now the pot sits at 2400 credits, so how about we get this show on the road!"

A cacophony of cheering and shouts of joy followed the announcement. Ash observed as a relatively young-looking Mr. Mime set up psychic barriers around the battlegrounds, in order to prevent any stray attacks from hitting the growing crowds.

The announcer called the first two names for the first match of the day, and the tournament began in earnest. Ash watched the first couple battles, mentally taking notes on some of the more interesting fights, just in case he had to face any of them when he won his own match. One young bug type specialist used a ferocious looking beedrill, knocking out his opponent under in under a minute, Ash would have to watch out for him.

"AND NOW LADIES AND GENTLEMAN, PLEASE WELCOME ASH KETCHUM AND FELIX ANDERSON TO THE STAGE"

Ash stood up and told the guy next to him to save his seat. Walking over to the designated trainer's box he looked over to analyze his opponent. They guy looked a bit nervous. Continuously tapping his index finger on his pokeball, fidgeting with his jacket, eyes darting between Ash and the charmander by his side.

Felix lost the coin toss, so Ash waited for him to send out a pokemon. A svelte and sleek body appeared when the light faded. Its bright green coloration complimenting the cream-colored underbelly. It's tail resembling that of a maple leaf. He recognized it as one of the common grass types from Unova, a pokemon that nearly a tenth of trainers received when starting their journeys. _Ah now it makes sense._

"Felix has sent out a snivy! While common, this pokemon packs quite a punch and should not be underestimated. How will Ash respond?"

Deciding to ignore the announcer going forward, Ash deliberated on which one of his pokemon he should use. Using Typhaon would give him a significant advantage, but he wanted to save his friends strength for the later battles, where the competition would be stiffer. Using Horus gave him the advantage of flight and could end this battle just as quickly. He grabbed the pokeball off his belt and tossed it into the air, releasing the avian.

"Hey Horus, think you're up for taking this guy out?"

The bird squawked in indignation, as if there was any doubt.

"Good" grinned Ash.

"Ash has sent out a staravia folks. Although this one seems to be a bit larger than usual, I wonder what he feeds it."

The teen across from Ash looked no less nervous that he had sent out the flyer instead of Typhaon, he knew he was at a disadvantage. Ash wasn't about to wait and find out if he had any dangerous surprises.

"Gust, get it off balance." Ash commanded in a low voice. He knew the staravia could hear him from the somewhat close distance. No need to let Felix know what he was trying to do.

Horus glided across the air towards the snivy. He stopped a bit in front of it and started flapping his wings with a tremendous force. The visible rush of wind drove down on the snivy, as it struggled to maintain its balance.

"Vine Whip, knock that thing out of the air!" Shouted Felix.

Two thin strands of twine shot out from the popped up yellow collar, though they only failed to get any further than a couple feet. Felix looked on with frustration at the failed attempt.

"Magical Leaf!" The snivy spun in place, producing leaves around its body. They stood in place for a second, defying the wind trying to force it back. The leaves took on a bevy of different coloring and then they raced towards the bird

"None of that" Ash whispered to himself. "Double team."

Two additional images appeared, spread out from each other. The leaves passed through the middle one harmlessly. Ash whistled in a low pitch that transitioned to a sharp high note. While Felix was confused, Horus understood what the signal meant. They had been practicing that particular whistle since the day after Ash had caught him. Letting out a harsh caw, almost resembling a battle cry, he lunged forward. He pumped his wings for all their worth, gaining a speed that was hard to track. He flickered in and out of existence as he approached the rattled snivy.

"Dodge it!" cried the boy, unwilling to lose this fast.

The snivy didn't know which way to move. In front of it there were two staravia approaching it, the two images intertwining with each other to make sure she couldn't guess the real one. In its indecisiveness, it felt all the wind being knocked out of it as the staravia scored a direct hit with its glowing wing.

"Snivy is unable to battle, Ash Ketchum is the winner!"

Ash nodded to the disgruntled teen. The guy huffed at him and walked away after recalling his pokemon. _Meh, forget that guy. _Ash recalled his Horus and whispered to the ball, "You did great bud, now rest up, the day isn't over."

Walking back to his seat the people around congratulated him. He picked up his axew and put him in his lap, with Typhaon clinging to his leg. The host announced the next battle and the rest carried day carried on.

Watching some of the rest of the battles, there were very few that caught his interest. A butterfree that put up a brave but futile fight against a houndour. A bidoof that lost to a particularly young ralts. The only thing that truly worried him was the savage beedrill that steamrolled through its opponents. None of the trainers seemed that interesting either. He had been hoping to see either Gary or Leaf here, but it seems like they had both moved on.

His next match was just as forgettable as the first one, with staravia ending it just as fast. It seemed the older girl had acquired a beautifly from the Hoenn region. Ash found out afterwards that she was mainly interested in competing in the Mulberry City contest at the end of the month, and had only entered to gain some experience.

Right about noon was when the semifinals were set to begin. Ash looked at his competition and worried about the beedrill. While he knew his own pokemon were strong, he didn't think they had the speed necessary to match the beedrill. On top of that, Horus was tired after already defeating two opponents, so using him was out of the question. It was the only pokemon the trainer had displayed, so he wasn't sure what other surprises he had in store.

"And now ladies and gentleman, its time for semifinals!" The announcer told the crowd. "For our first match, it will be Wally Miller vs Ash Ketchum. Both these fine young trainers have given an incredible performance today, so let's give them a round of applause."

Ash gave a small wave to the crowd, hoping they couldn't sense how awkward this was for him. He saw his opponent merely keep his eyes on the ground he was walking on, tightening his clutch on his leather handbag. He even pulled out what looked to be an inhaler and took a puff.

Ash gave the guy an analytical look, oddly colored green hair, light blue overcoat that looked a size too big for him, and silver trousers. He looked to be about his age, so Ash guessed he was about as green as he was. His ralts followed closely behind him holding onto his leg and even hiding behind it as the crowd's eyes watched their battle closely, tension filling the air.

"Ash Ketchum you have lost the coin toss, will you please bring forth your pokemon."

Ash went over in his mind what he had seen from the boy all day. So far, he had fought with only the ralts, and he couldn't see any other pokeballs anywhere on the boy's body, so he assumed that the ralts was the only pokemon the boy had on him. He knew better than to assume the tiny pokemon was weak. He seen several videos of the gardevior owned by the Kalos champion take down monstrous teams. It was also rumored that Sabrina owned a gallade that she liked to use against some of the more arrogant trainers. Making a decision, he brought out the only pokemon that could disrupt the young psychics abilities.

Ares appeared and slammed his tail on the ground, growling and issuing a challenge to any who came in front of him.

"Ladies and gentleman, we are in for a treat today, Ash has released the infamous larvitar! I'm not going to question how in the world he obtained one at such a young age, but I do hope he has it under control."

Ash smiled at the confused look the boy had on his face, _must not be from around here_. While the tyranitar line were notorious in Kanto and Johto, the same couldn't be said for the other regions where they couldn't be found. Most of the time it just wasn't worth the hassle of traveling all the way to Mt. Silver to get one, especially since most people would come out empty handed.

Wally crouched down and said something to the ralts, Ash assumed it was words of encouragement since it seemed nervous, then sent it out. It was hard to tell how far along it was, given that he had no experience with the pokemon. Its bright red horn glowing with an underlying power, the pearly white extension behind it flowed like a dress in the wind as it stepped forward.

"And Wally has chosen his Ralts once again! This is a battle seen throughout the ages, a battle between brains vs brawn. Will the young psychic be able to overcome its adversary? Or will the nightmarish larvitar end the streak of the young pokemon."

Ash knew he had to end this quickly. If the ralts knew any fairy type moves, it could do some serious harm to Ares and vice versa. If Ares could land a clean hit with dark pulse, it would probably take down the pokemon. But first…

"Stone Edge!" Ash needed to feel out his opponent, this wouldn't as easy as the first two fights had been. Ares punched the ground in front of him, rapidly raising the stone pillars in a straight line headed towards the ralts.

"Teleport, then use confusion and slam it down!" Shouted Wally. His nerves seemingly calming down now that he had something else to focus on besides the crowd.

The ralts disappeared just as the dull blue colored pillars were about to slam into it. It reappeared about ten feet away. Its red horn glowed, and it put his hands in front of it, clearly focusing on the larvitar. The ralts was surrounded by a thin red light as it blasted out a wave of psychic energy.

"Take the hit" cried out Ash. Wally looked shocked at his command, as did the crowd

Ares visibly braced himself, using his arms to cover his torso. The young pokemon thought the energy looked dangerous to get hit by, but he was willing to trust his trainer.

Ash knew Ares could have easily dodged the attack, but he wanted to test out a hypothesis of his. While larvitars didn't share the same typing as a tyranitar, Ash hypothesized that the latent traits of the dark type genes were still prevalent enough to nullify the weak psychic energy. It would help to explain why Ares dark pulse was so strong compared to the rest of his attacks, even the ones that were more attune with his current typing. As the wave failed to do anything, much to the surprise of everyone, including Ares, Ash couldn't help the grin that reached his ears. The ralts and Wally were stunned at the ineffectiveness, it had been their trump card for most of the day, so now they were at the disadvantage.

Wally's eyes flickered with realization "psychic moves won't do much to it, use disarming voice."

"Oh Fuck! Use dig, don't let that hit you." Ash shouted with alarm in his voice. Even though he knew the fairy type move wouldn't do much damage to Ares, this was one hypothesis he didn't want to try out yet.

Ares escaped into the ground just as the pink tinted sound waves passed by. The ralts looked around, somewhat stunned that it had missed.

"Teleport, don't let it know where you're at."

Ash's eyebrows furrowed in concentration as he watched the ralts continuously teleporting, trying to avoid staying in one spot for too long. _It can't keep teleporting, it already looked like it was tired after the first time. Must mean that it's not used to teleporting so often during a fight_

After about the fifth time, Ares came up at the spot where the ralts stayed at a few seconds too long. The ralts cried a shout of surprise and pain as it was forced from its spot and fell to the ground, hard.

"Iron tail!"

"Disable, then use disarming voice!"

Ares was stopped mid-swing of his tail, the tail losing its dull metallic sheen. He was starting to get incredibly annoyed with this pokemon. He growled as he fought with sheer will and strength against the paralyzing attack. He refused to be stopped by this dainty twig.

Ralts stood up, obviously struggling to maintain the immobilization.

"Screech! Throw off its concentration" Shouted Ash, surprised at the versatility the ralts was showing.

"Teleport Again!" cried out Wally.

Unfortunately for Wally, it was in vain. Ares let out blood curling shriek, causing the ralts (and most everybody) to cover their ears to block out the horrendous noise.

"Dark Pulse!" Ash yelled, hoping Ares could hear him.

Ares paused for moment to gather the malicious energy and fired it point blank at the ralts. The dark purple rings threw the ralts back, making it squeal in pain as the malevolent energy disrupted its psychic aura.

Ash looked on in admiration, as the ralts stood its ground, shakily, unwilling to go down. If this was a wild pokemon, he would have tried to catch it, but as life would have it, it's currently their opponent

"Finish this with Iron tail!"

Wally knew that his ralts didn't have the energy to teleport again. He was on the brink of fainting and it would take a miracle to win now. But he was unwilling to go down without a fight, especially if ralts was unwavering, even in the presence of the superior foe.

"Magical leaf!" Shouted the desperate boy.

The rainbow-colored leaves shot with a fury at the larvitar as he sprinted towards the pokemon, leaving some deep lacerations on the rock-hard armor of Ares. But he was undeterred. He jumped into the air, butterfly twisted and smashed his tail onto the side of the pokemon, sending it flying back across the field. He slammed his tail on the ground, growling and demanding the ralts to stay down.

"Ralts is no longer able to battle" boomed the voice of the announcer. Breaking the spell the crowd had been under in watching the intense fight before them. "Ash Ketchum will move onto the final battle. Let's have a round of applause to both young trainers and their pokemon, who performed beyond our expectations!"

"We did it "Shouted Ash, jumping for joy. What he didn't notice was the ecstatic larvitar running towards him. "Wait, nonono"- cried Ash as Ares playfully jumped into his arms. The sudden heavy weight causing him to fall backwards while holding onto his pokemon.

"Larvitar" exclaimed the happy pokemon.

Ash couldn't help but grin at the happy pokemon. This had been fun and a good way to test out Ares' skills. He wrapped his arms around Ares and gave him a quick squeeze, content to lay there for a moment. But Ares was way to heavy to continue letting him sit in his chest. Rolling over to his side, the heavyset pokemon slid off him as Ash stood up.

"C'mon. Typhaon and Kratos are waiting for us back at the stands." Ares put his arms up a similar way that he had seen Kratos do. "You've gotta be kidding me! Your way too heavy to pick up bud."

"Larvitar!" Exclaimed Ares, undeterred. If that dragon and lizard could get picked up, then so could he.

Ash stood there, stumped for a second at the action his most reserved pokemon was showing. Then he grinned like a Cheshire cat. If Ares was willing to let him show a little bit of affection, who was he to judge.

His face grew red as he struggled to pick him up, but pick him up he did. Shifting the weight in his arms in order to hold Ares up easier, he walked back to the spot where he had been sitting. Just as he was sitting down, He noticed that Wally was walking over to him, holding the recovering ralts in his arms.

"H-Hey" stammered out the awkward teen. "That was a great match. Your pokemon was really strong."

"Oh, Well thanks. I was surprised with your ralts too," Ash remarked. "I know that their evolutionary line are fairly strong, but I always figured their first form was really weak, like most psychic types."

"Thanks," the young trainer and his pokemon beamed. "Do you mind if I Sit here with you, I don't know anyone else."

"Sure, no problem" Ash told the trainer as he scooted over. The next match was about to start, so he figured he could make some small talk. "So where are you from? There's no way you found that ralts here in Kanto."

"I'm from the Hoenn Region" answered Wally, spraying a potion onto the pokemon in question. "I'm here visiting some family in the city till tomorrow. They're the ones who told me about this tournament."

"But why enter if you only have one pokemon?" questioned Ash. It wasn't really his business, but four matches was hard to ask out of a young psychic pokemon, they just didn't have the endurance or stamina built up yet.

"I have a skitty and a budew, I just haven't had a chance to train them yet. I just started my pokemon journey last week, but my parents really wanted me to come. So here I Am." Wally shrugged his shoulders, indifferent to his situation.

"Wow you're from Hoenn? Are you trying to challenge Wallace Mill-?" Ash's eyes widened. Now that he took a good look at Wally, he could see a resemblance to the Hoenn champion. Green hair and grey eyes weren't exactly common anywhere. "Wait, are you two related?

Wally looked embarrassed under the scrutiny Ash was giving him. "Y-Yea."

"That's so cool!" Exclaimed Ash. "I bet he gives you tons of training and teaches you pro strategies!"

"Please keep it down, I would rather that not be something everyone find out about."

"Oh, sorry" Ash chuckled apologetically while rubbing the back of his head.

"And for your other questions, no he doesn't treat me as special or anything. In fact, we barely keep in touch. He's to busy these days for family" muttered the teen.

"Well, sorry about that. What's your reasoning for becoming a trainer then?"

Wally didn't respond for a second, instead looking out onto the field where the beedrill and houndour were fighting, contemplating. When he finally responded, Ash was surprised by the passion in his voice.

"It's always been a dream of mine. I don't know if it's obvious, but I have asthma. It's a disease that's inflicted me my whole life, and made it very difficult for me to even get my trainers license since I struggled so much in the practical portions. My entire family thought I was too weak to get my license, so when I did, it came as a surprise to everyone, including Wallace. I want to prove to my family that I can be just as good as him." Wally declared, a little surprised at how much he had shared with the boy who was pretty much a stranger.

Ash grinned at the boy, and slapped his hand on his shoulder, startling the young man. "Well Wally, that's just as admirable as anybody's else's reasons. And when you reach the top, I expect a battle from you."

"Thanks' Ash," responded Wally earnestly.

"LADIES AND GENTLEMAN, NOW FOR THE FOR THE FINAL MATCH OF THE DAY"-

"Wanna stick around till after my match?" Ash asked Wally as he stood up, not bothering to pay attention to the rest of what the announcer had to say. "We can grab a bite to eat afterwards."

"Sure, I'd like that"

"Great," smiled Ash, "Let me just beat this guy real quick."

Wally raised his eyebrow at that, "So sure you're going to win Ash?"

"What can I say, I believe in my pokemon." And with that, Ash headed towards the trainers' box alongside Typhaon, leaving Kratos and Ares to look on from afar.

They had already discussed who he was going to use this morning when they had first signed up. He had informed them that he would use Horus for as many of the matches as he could and save Ares and Typhaon for the later matches. While Kratos had looked crestfallen at his choice to not use him, Ash had informed the dragon that it was merely because he didn't have any experience. battling. And once he got up to par, he had promised that he would use him in the next one.

"This is the last round for today's Amateur tournament. We have seen many spectacular battles and this last one promises to be no different. Now Rick, if you would, please send out your pokemon and let's begin!"

Ash looked onto the young man whore sported a tan sun hat, green t-shirt and khakis. It was obvious that the kid seemed to have an affinity for beedrills, having used two different ones during his last three matches.

It was usually difficult for most people to discern two different beedrill from each other, but Ash had payed attention during his studies. It was the wings. Each beedrill wing was composed of a thin transparent membrane of cuticle, and an intricate web of veins. Every beedrill had a different pattern of veins, similar to how snowflakes were always structured differently. Sure, since beedrills laid millions of eggs each year, there were bound to be similar patterns. But these two happened to differentiate quite a bit.

"Go Hornet!"

Ok so maybe the kid wasn't that creative with names…

Ash looked at Typhaon, perhaps it would have been smarter to use the one pokemon he had who resisted poison, but he wasn't about to deny Typhaon the thrill of battle.

"You're up bud."

"Char!" Typhaon rushed forward, the flame on his tail glowing a little bit brighter than usual, giving away his enthusiasm.

"While Hornet has the flight advantage, along with those razor-sharp stingers, Charmander has the fire power to do some serious damage. This match could go either way"

The two pokemon stared each other down, the bright red orbs giving nothing away on to how it was feeling. It was true Ash was at the slight disadvantage, with Typhaon being unable to fly, so he would wait patiently for Rick to make the first move and give him the opening he needed. Finally, it seemed like Rick had gotten tired of their little stare down.

"Agility, hit it with Fury Sting!" yelled out the bug catcher.

_Fury Sting? Must be a combination of fury attack and poison sting. Can't let Typhaon get hit by that._

"Smoke sphere!"

Typhaon opened his mouth and spun around while letting out the smog. It was a trick they had picked up while fighting Horus a couple days ago that hid the charmander well enough for the few vital seconds.

The beedrill flew into the smoke, its stingers dripping with poison. Its wings weren't strong enough to blow any of the smoke away, so it was stuck flying in blindly.

It went through twice before Ash decided he didn't want to chance it a third time. He waited until he saw the body of the beedrill disappear into the smoke for the third time to give his command.

"Typhaon, Light it up!"

"Hornet get out of there" yelled Rick.

Typhaon fired off an enormous blast of ember, enough so that flickers of flames seeped out from the dense fog. The beedrill flew out of the cloud, black chars now speckled its abdomen and wings. It seemed like they had at least damaged its ability to fly fast.

Typhaon charged out, trying to chase down the beedrill with his flames.

"Hornet, toxic spikes!"

"Burn them all away!" Typhaon took another huge breath of air, before releasing another blast of fire. Unfortunately, he missed some. As continued to walk forward, trying to keep the beedrill on the defensive, he stepped on one of the spikes.

Typhaon yelped in surprise, and the beedrill took advantage of the distraction to charge forward with its twin stingers, poison still leaking from them.

"Dodge!"

Typhaon was scratched by the right stinger just as he jumped away, and drops of blood started seeping from the cut.

_Shit, _This, was bad, at this point the poison would have been introduced into the blood stream. While he knew the poison wasn't fast acting, it was still debilitating. They were on a time limit now.

"Close in! Rapid Fire at close range!"

"Don't let him get close to you!"

Typhaon had to be careful how much he ran now. The more he ran, the faster he could feel the effects of the poison.

It was a good thing Ash had been working on Typhaons speed since the day after they met. He rushed forward surprising everyone with the sudden burst of speed. He jumped in front of the beedrill, ignoring the pain coursing through his veins. And spout out balls of fire.

Rick wouldn't let himself be taken down so easily "Twin Needle!" The insect met the charmander in the air and thrust out both stingers intending to end this.

They both crashed to the ground. Each one hurt by the others attack.

Ash stared in desperation, opening and taking out an antidote vial, needle, and potion from the PFAK (Pokemon First Aid Kit) that was attached to the left side of his belt. If Typhaon was done, he needed to make sure he could give him the antidote ASAP.

As both trainers looked on, the two pokemon stood up, both unwilling to go down first. Ash could see both were struggling.

The beedrills exoskeleton had been severely blackened, and one of its wings was twisted at an unnatural angle, preventing it from flying.

Typhaon looked a bit better. He had taken that last attack head on and now had two small punctures in the front of his torso. The poison was still coursing through his veins, but it seemed to Ash like it hadn't been potent enough to fully affect him by now. They still had a chance to win this.

"Rapid Fire one last time!" Yelled Ash, wanting to finish this. Typhaon grunted a response and released the attack that would finish his opponent.

"Dodge it!" The beedrills first instinct was to take flight and sadly, that was its downfall. It managed to get a couple inches into the air, nowhere near its usual flight speed, before it was hit by the orbs of fire. Several second later, it was down for the count.

"That was a great match! Was it not ladies and gentleman? Please give it up for the winner of the tournament, Ash Ketchum!"

Ash barely heard a word of what was said, instead rushing forward with the antidote in his hand. He inserted the antidote into Typhaons skin, then began applying a potion to the two wounds and cut that the charmander had received during the battle.

Fortunately, beedrills poison wasn't known for being potent, instead it relied on introducing the body several times to the toxins in order to gain the advantage. Typhaon stood up a minute later, feeling just fine.

His opponent never said a word to him, merely choosing to recall his pokemon and walk off in the other direction.

Ash picked up the charmander and spun him around "We did it buddy! We won!"

"Char, Char!" crowed out Typhaon, feeling just as happy as his trainer.

The Announcer walked up to Ash and held out an envelope. "Congratulations Ash. That was one hell of a show! And if you're ever back in town, please come compete in the advanced trainers' tournament."

Ash took the envelop and stuck it inside his jacket. He beamed at the announcer "Thanks sir for the opportunity to win some money."

The announcer grinned and gave him a thumbs up before departing. He brought the microphone back up to his mouth.

"Thank you all for coming to the Amateur Tournament. We will be taking an hour break, at which point we will resume with the Intermediate Tournament."

The crowd began to climb down from the bleachers and disperse, which made it easier for Ash to reach his own pokemon and Wally.

"Nice going Ash, for a second there I thought he had you."

"Yea? Well so did I," admitted Ash. But the he started scratching Typhaons head, right behind the ear. "But then this guy came through and we won!"

His pokemon all gave shouts of Joy.

Wally stood up, obviously ready to get going. "So, where do you want to go eat? I hear there's a ramen shop on main that really good."

"Anywhere sounds good" said Ash, putting Typhaon down on the ground so he could walk. And apparently Kratos felt neglected, because he jumped into Ash's arms next. But Ash didn't care, "Tonight," he addressed the group, "We eat like kings!"

* * *

**A/N Thank you to everyone who has read and enjoyed this story. If anyone is wondering why I made this chapter so fight heavy, its because I'm trying to better my writing skills when describing battles. I promise to not do this too often. The next chapter will lean more heavily on worldbuilding and getting through the Viridian Forrest and Pewter City. As always if you like my story, please consider leaving a review and following. I will continue updating about every two weeks, but from now on I will always update on either Fridays or Saturdays.**

**Before this causes some issues or any kind of confusion, no, Wally will not become a reoccurring character. I added him because its my story and I wanted to have some fun with it. He was my favorite rival during the third gen series, so I showed him some love. Although I can't promise he won't show up one or two more times. Now for some Review Responses:**

**TheBatFamily:** **Really enjoyed the story so far and am super pumped for what comes next, also if Ash is getting a gible like I think he's going to then he is really shaping up to have a monstrous team. Also was just wondering if you planned to have Ash build a team of six or so Pokemon or if this would be like one of the stories where Ash ended up catching tons of Pokemon?**

**Thank you for leaving a review! While I love gible, Haxorus just beats him up on the scale of my favorite dragons. And in response to how many pokemon he's going to get, I'm going to try and keep the number low, around ten for now. Give him some variety in the pokemon he uses.**

**Hilte:** **Good job! I can't wait to read more. I love that he is getting such a wide variety of different pokemon from the norm. I do miss pikachu though, maybe he can still catch him just obviously not have him as his starter... I like the idea of charmander being his starter!**

**Thank you for leaving a review! While I don't have anything against pikachu, I already have another electric type that I want him to use, a more recent addition to the games.**

**MrMarauder98:** **Feck Yeah! Larvitar Baby! My OTP! Get guud Scrubz. Loving the story so far. Especially the pokemon your giving him, and while I think Giovanni giving Ash a Pokemon is a bit much, its still alright. A quick fix though, in chapter 1 after Charmander Pokedex readout, you say Dragon Dance instead of Dragon Rush. Ke3p up the good work!**

**Thank You for leaving a review! And thank you for pointing that out, I went back and fixed it. Also, I needed a way to introduce the pokemon I wanted and this way was sort of the most convenient. **


	4. Chapter 4

**Long awaited update! Once again, I want to thank all you wonderful readers for being my inspiration and drive to continue this story. I'm not too happy with how this chapter turned out, but after suffering from extreme writer's block towards the end, I kind of just wanted to get this out there so I could move on with the story. As always, if you like the story and wish to see the direction its going, would love to see you favorite and follow. Also any reviews, whether giving some constructive advice, outright criticism, or even letting me know what you enjoyed about the story so far is always appreciated.**

**Pokemon On Hand**

**Typhaon- Charmander**

**Horus- Staravia**

**Ares- Larvitar**

**Kratos- Axew**

Professor Oak had been having a wonderful morning. He'd woken up to an email from a correspondent in Sinnoh, eaten his favorite pastry for breakfast, and the lapras he'd been rehabilitating was nearly healthy enough to rejoin its pack in the Seafoam Islands. Nothing could have soured his mood. That is until a certain raven-haired kid called and explained to him how he had been involved with the incident in Viridian City several days ago. And now he had somehow managed to procure a _pseudo-legendary _and a _dragon_ within days of each other.

Oak rubbed his right temple, his other arm crossed over his chest to support the weight of his right arm. "Are you sure that you're alright? The news has been replaying some of the footage from that night, and it doesn't look like the place where a 16-year-old child should have been mucking around."

Ash rolled his eyes at the professor "I'm fine. I've been a little sore for the last couple of days but nothing I couldn't handle." Ash glanced quickly around the lounge area in the pokemon center, making sure there were no eavesdroppers nearby. He _really _didn't want anyone to hear his next inquiry. Satisfied that no one was near, he turned back to the screen in front of him. "I'm more interested in the mythical dratini colony you tell stories about." Ash whispered conspiratorially. "Hidden somewhere deep in the Viridian Forest. The one where you found your dragonite, and that you _promised _to tell me and Gary about when we became trainers."

Oak sighed, mentally kicking himself for promising such a thing. "While I did give you my word about that, I think acquiring a dragon has made any commitments I made to you null-in-void. It just wouldn't be fair to Gary, or Leaf, if I gave you that information. Besides, don't you think your axew would get jealous?"

Ash frowned, petting the dragon that had been resting on his head, the pokemons feet supported by his shoulders. "I suppose you're right. It was just something I couldn't get out of my head after rewatching one of Lance's exhibition matches last night. And since we're about to enter the forest, seemed as good as time as any to ask."

Oak chuckled, "I understand your enthusiasm. The rush you get when obtaining a powerful pokemon is exhilarating, but please do remember that you must train your pokemon first before attempting to catch too many. I gave this talk to Gary before he left, but I never imagined that I would have to give you the same lecture."

Ash had the decency to look embarrassed. "I suppose your right professor, I suppose I just got caught up in the possibility of possessing two dragons so early in my journey."

"Mmhmm" hummed Oak while nodding his head. "I expect the axew in your possession will prove himself arduous to train. Judging by his move set and how relatively young he is, he was bred instead of being born in the wild, and has been living in domestication since birth."

Ash frowned as he thought it over, mentally reviewing what he had learned from the admittedly short breeder portions of his studies. "I guess that means he isn't going to have any natural instincts when it comes to fighting? Makes sense considering he was extremely slow trying to dodge Typhaons attacks yesterday. Even more when so when you take into account all his attacks are weak and won't do much until he learns how to put power behind them."

"That's Correct," Oak responded enthusiastically. "He's probably going to need a lot more training than any of your other pokemon. Your larvitar will be strong by default. Females of their species can only breed twice in their lifetimes. Causing them to only mate with the strongest males, leading to an escalation of competition between the males. Natural selection has done wonders for that line. Although he will grow just as slow as axew. Charmander's tend to fight with each other whilst in the care of their mother's. The brawls that happen in the Charizard dens are fascinating to watch. Focus on several key moves for your axew, making sure to have a varying degree of difficulties so he doesn't become discouraged. When you think he's ready, let him begin battling with stage one pokemon. It will inevitably help him gain experience while building up confidence in the process."

Ash nodded along with Professor Oaks rambling, making sure to give a little attention to the charmander currently sitting in his lap, tail tucked out in front of him to make sure Ash couldn't get burned. Ares currently in his pokeball. Ash had no qualms about letting him out of his ball when they started traveling, merely not wanting the general public gawking at the uncommon sight. The surplus of people who had come up to him yesterday demanding a trade, or even offering impressive amounts of cash had made him weary of letting the larvitar out in public spaces. He was just glad that most people didn't seem to recognize the dragon that had taken up a permanent residence on his head.

"Thanks for the advice Professor, but I should get going now. It's almost 10 and I wanted to reach the forest before the heat made traveling too uncomfortable."

"Did you already call your mother? Hearing about the attack left her distressed about your safety. She's already coming up with tons of crazy conspiracies as to why you haven't called yet."

Ash smiled at the thought of his overprotective mother and her theories. "Yea, I called this morning after we ate breakfast. She definitely had some strong words for me." That was putting it mildly. His mother's berating words had rang in the back of his mind for half an hour, words that would've made any grown man hang their head in shame, And while he knew her threat of bringing him back home kicking and screaming had been in the hypothetical sense, he still had no intentions of getting into trouble again, lest she follow through.

Giving the professor one last nod goodbye, he signed off the video call and stood up from the chair he had been sitting in for the last forty minutes, stretching to loosen up some of his stiffened muscles. He turned towards the elevator to head back to the room, Typhaon on his heels. It would have been easy enough to take the stairs, but he was about to do enough walking going through the forest in the upcoming weeks, so might as well enjoy the last bit of comfort that he could.

After entering the room, he grabbed his pack and gave the left side compartment one last inspection. It was where he stored all the medicinal items he needed to get through the forest. Alongside several herbal salves and creams, he carried two medium sized armadillo cases, each with twenty, one-dose antidote filled syringes and needles. One large armadillo case filled with 20 potions and quite possibly the most important items, one sleek armadillo case with ten revives. Those had cost him a half-years savings, but he knew they were absolutely necessary. Aspiring trainers who maintained small teams needed to carry around the life-saving crystallite medicine, in order to never be put in the precarious position of being out in the wild without any protection. If he needed more, his knowledge of medicinal herbs sporadically found across the woodlands would prove invaluable.

The armadillo cases were lifesavers. Each one made of remarkable durable polycarbonate plastic, the properties boasted kept all the fragile medical supplies enveloped in a nearly indestructible rugged case. His mentor during his summer survival courses had emphasized safeguarding the crucial supplies, taking it so far as to gift Ash several cases of his own. Ash hadn't been able to thank the man enough.

He smiled softly. Memories of running through the woods, a boisterous voice shouting that an usaring would eat him in a heartbeat should he move any slower rang in his mind.

Giving it a quick satisfactory nod, he put all the medicinal cases back into the storage compartment, zipped up his rucksack and threw it on. He gave the empty room one last look, just to make sure he hadn't forgotten anything, and walked back out.

XXX

Walking along the road that led towards Viridian Forest, Ash took some time to admire the rural communities and plains that spilled over the city's ancient walls. The passing landscape exuding tranquility and instilling a sense of serenity. The northern outskirts of Viridian City were mostly vast plains filled with fields of wheat, corn, and barley. Meadows of wildflowers peppered in-between to give the calmer pokemon a place to call home. Separated by thick reinforced dry-stone walls in order to contain some semblance of order and protection.

He could see herds of nidorans, nidorinos and nidoranas, playing and chasing each other. The sole matriarch keeping watch so that humans wouldn't disturb the pack. Flocks of pidgeys and spearow occasionally flew into his field of vision, although they avoided flying anywhere near him due to Horus's domineering presence in the sky. His bird screeched the occasional challenge, hoping to provoke a fight, but neither of the native species rose to the occasion. He frowned. _Im going to have to tell him to knock it off once we enter the forest, don't want the older pidgeots or fearows picking a fight._ Packs of rattatas, sentrets, and meowths scurried about, taking care to not come too close to him or his pokemon.

Only a handful of trainers challenged him on the frequently traveled path. Most traveled without any kind backpacks or travel bags, making him assume they either stayed in the city or lived nearby and were just battling travelers. He won all the battles, though he still wasn't comfortable enough to use Kratos in a fight quite yet. Hopefully by the time they exited the forest, he would feel confident enough to use Kratos in a battle.

The Viridian Forest is the first true test of mettle that young trainers on the west side of Kanto encountered on their journeys. While it didn't boast of powerful pokemon like the wildlands that laid in between Viridian and Celedon, or the ones that could be found in the mountain ranges that divided Kanto and Johto. The Viridian Forest tested the endurance and readiness of every wanderer. The host bug type pokemon mostly boasted of a skillset that could cripple any trainer, poison. Poison was the name of the enemy here in the forest. It's the most debilitating and critical of effect that every trainer would face within its boundaries. In turn with the hordes of beedrills and various colonies of pincers, any trainer would be in immediate danger should they enter unprepared. While there were villages that could help, they were few and far, and the forest was so incredibly dense that if you strayed off the numerous paths, you could easily be lost.

As they approached the entrance to the forest, he couldn't help but feel a sense of awe and wonderment at the ancient landmark of Kanto. A clear divide present in where the plains and tall grass ended, and the forest began. The woodline felt large and imposing, to him it almost felt like the armies of old he had read about. The towering tree trunks reminding him of phalanxes enacting shield walls, formidable and nigh impenetrable. Each tree a soldier in protecting those who dwelled within its borders. A fine mist that layered the forest floor and had yet to disperse only added to the intrigue. As if it promised to tell the stories and secrets of the thousands of travelers who answered the beckoning call of the forest.

Right before he entered, he stopped at the wooden bulletin board. It held various pamphlets about the history, villages, and pokemon that called the forest their home, but his interest laid in something else. A map, or more precisely a map of the forest. The maps were restocked daily, and updated once a month, to make sure travelers always had a reliable source of the terrain and villages that were located within the forest. Incidents weren't uncommon, with death being the rarest, chiefly due to the platoon of rangers assigned to patrolling the forest. Stories were still told of the lost souls who had disappeared within the confines of the forest, never to be heard from again.

Walking through and into the forest, it almost felt surreal, as if he had crossed an invisible barrier. The endless treetops kissed the sky in every imaginable shade of green. Rays of sunlight broke through the dense verdurous canopy, casting a green-gold luminescence over the ground and providing a source of heat and comfort to all living beings inside. Several of the ancient trees were wreathed in moss and vine that now made their home on the once rough bark. Each enduring tree having been alive longer than he had, and would still be here long after he departed. The floor littered in a tapestry of fallen branches, logs, and leaves, telling tales of seasons past. Each passing step the scents of various flowers and foliage that pervaded the air bombarding him.

He could hear twittering and calls from the surrounding spearow and pidgeys, as well as a few species he couldn't place. The deeper he walked the more he noticed the subtle signs of life that stayed away from the frequently traveled paths. Freshly shed cocoons of kakuna and metapods were still degrading into the soil, faint trails of the small larvae that were abundant in the forest, alongside several other tracks that he couldn't quite make out.

Noticing several forks in the path, he quickly checked the map he had grabbed and walked down the one that looked to be heading a northeastern direction. The first thing he had to do was find a water source, so he was going to follow this path for several miles until diverging to find one of the rivers that cut through the forest. Confirming his chosen route one last time, he began to walk. Strolling through the trail, he couldn't help but recall the forest's history

The forest was hundreds of years old, and at one point in its history, had encompassed most of the western provinces. But human urbanization and deforestation had shrunken the territory down to a fraction of what it had once been, and had threatened to overtake it completely. That is until prodigy from Pallet Town, who had ruthlessly torn a warpath throughout several conferences, became champion of the Indigo League. Samuel Oak, during his tenure as Indigo League Champion, made it his mission to protect and preserve pokemon habitats from the encroaching humans. Acting as a mediator between the local populous and larger corporations, he helped negotiate, enact and enforce several key policies around the region that served to protect the rights of pokemon to a degree. Refusing to budge on the issue, he laid the groundwork for the protection of pokemon of several key areas, including those inside the forest. Preventing logging companies from venturing any further into the forest than they already had. His policies at the time, while seen as absurd and disruptive to human progress, would eventually be adopted by several other regions. His steadfast views and morals influencing those key figures around him and slowly trickling down the pipeline. Even after he abdicated the title, his predecessors would continue in his footsteps, unrelenting in their pursuit to bring balance to the world.

After battling two bug type specialists with Typhaon, he finally found the valley where he would stray from the dirt path. He carefully made his way down the slope and continued trudging through the forest. Before he had left, he had made sure to tiedown his compass to this rucksack so it would be easier to keep track of. He continuously checked that alongside his map to make sure he was going the right way.

After nearly an hour of trekking through the woods he whistled to Horus, signaling him to come down.

"Can you fly in that general direction and see if you can find this river?" He asked. "I know we're close, but I want to be sure before we keep going."

Horus took off, and Ash sat down on a fallen tree. After about ten minutes the staravia came back, signaling to Ash that they were getting close.

"Well lead the way."

It took another half hour before Ash heard the sound of rushing water, and that's when he spotted the river about 100 ft in front of him.

"Finally," Ash said out loud. Following this river north for the next two to three weeks would get them as close to the city as possible while keeping a water source nearby.

He checked his watch, it was little past one in the afternoon. Might as well stop to have lunch. He would stop traveling for the day at 4, in order to train and so he could fish a bit. He could already make out several outlines of the mouthwatering magikarp that made this river their home. He took out all the bowls and started distributing the food appropriately. Satisfied that everything was ready, he released Ares, who looked around their surroundings with curiosity in his eyes.

"We're in the forest," Ash explained. "C'mon, it's time to eat and you're not going back inside your ball until we're out of the forest…or if it rains."

Ares gave him a small shrug, and sat down in front of the bowl Ash placed in front of him. Typhaon did the same thing, as did Kratos who jumped down from his shoulders. Horus came down and started preening himself before he ate. Ever since he had heard the announcer call him a king, he had started taking extra care into grooming himself, as a king should.

Ash had a small smile on his face, as he watched the antics of his pokemon as they at. Kratos kept sniffing and wanting to take some food from Ares, who himself was extremely protective of his bowl. Typhaon kept stuffing his mouth full of food, cheeks puffed out similarly to qwilfish, before even attempting to swallow. Ash laughed when Ares smacked the claw of Kratos, and did his best attempt at a menacing growl to warn the axew from repeating the attempt. Horus merely sat next to him, carefully using his beak to separate some pellets unworthy enough to be consumed by him.

After they all finished, he made sure to put everything away and clean up any mess they had made. He didn't want to disturb the serenity of the forest more than their presence already would. He could already see oddishes and bellsprouts popping out of the ground to observe the from afar. All of them curious at his presence. Then they started moving. It would be a couple of weeks of this routine, especially since Ares moved slowly and had to take consistent rest stops, but he wanted to bond with all his pokemon, and letting them out whilst enjoying their company would be the best way to do just that.

Several hours passed as they trekked through the landscape, the valleys and foothills proving to be tiresome. At first, he tried to entertain his pokemon with tales from childhood, his future plans and dreams, until they eventually fell into a comfortable silence.

Kratos trotting alongside Ash for a while, before pouting and climbing back onto his trainers head to rest for a bit. Ash would let him rest, until he decided it was a major inconvenience to hike the forest with a pokemon atop his head and placed him back down, restarting the cycle. Typhaon was fine for the most part. Ash didn't demand that they push themselves faster than they comfortably could, so he kept up with relative ease. It was Ares that struggled the most out of all of them. He ran out of breath about every twenty minutes and forced them to stop for frequent 5-minute breaks. But Ash would never hold that against him. There was no hurry and he wasn't about to force the one pokemon that was unquestionably his strongest (although he would never openly admit this to Typhaon) to be so uncomfortable.

During the entire trek, he made sure to stay close to the river not wanting to stray to far away. Feeling as though they crossed enough distance for the day, he found a cozy riverbank with plenty of open space to train and spend the night. He felt that setting up about 200 feet away from the river would be good enough. Grabbing some rocks that seemed out of place, evidence that he had not been the first here, he laid them in a circle to create a rather large fire pit. Using his hatchet, he chopped up several branches so that he could have firewood for the night. He had checked the weather prior to leaving the city, and it was supposed to be clear skies for the next several days, so he didn't bother with a tent. Feeling confident enough about the footprint of his campsite, he decided it was time to train.

They trained for a couple of hours, everybody focusing on different strengths and weaknesses until Ash noticed the sky was becoming painted with different hues of orange and red. Once they stopped, Ash went to his pack and took out a fishing rod and stuck a berry on the end of a hook. Finding a nice spot, he cast the line. Being able to fend for yourself had been a large portion of his survival course, and that included fishing. He had learned early on that the best time to fish was usually during sunrise and sunsets. It was the time most magikarp came out from resting to feed and mate.

While fishing was a way of living for most people, especially here in the Kanto and Hoenn regions, it was still quite the controversial subject. No one really liked to admit to eating such a helpless creature, but it still needed to be done. Magikarp were the most invasive species on the planet, due in part to the fact that they were so hardy and could live in any body of water. They multiplied at much faster rates than any other water pokemon, and usually laid a dozen eggs at a time. This caused them to take up space and resources that should have gone to other pokemon that lived in the same area. It had been a huge problem for most regions until the quite encouragement had been given to simply eat the pokemon. A practice that was already normal for most folk, but always opened up a discussion on ethics. Fish farms were set up internationally, commercial fishing vessels roamed the coastlines, and locals stopped being so discreet about their food sources. Besides, it wasn't like all of them had the potential to evolve. It was only about 1 in every 1000 would ever evolve in the wild, being that without a trainer's help, magikarp had to go through monumental feats of achievements. One of the oldest and most well-known being the Liyu Tiao Long Men, in where magikarp came from all over the world in a attempt to jump over Tohjo Falls. It was a magnificent sight to behold if a person should be so lucky.

Typhaon, Ares, and Kratos all watched him with curiosity in their eyes as he began reeling in magikarp one by one. It was times like these he was glad for the companionship, as he watched their faces light up with wonderment as he finished pulling in the rest, a fish apiece except for Horus who squawked at him after reeling in the fourth.

"You sure you want to try? If you scare them off, I'm not going to make the others share."

Horus let out a sharp trill as his face took on an expression of fierce determination. He unfurled his wings and took off from the low branch on which he had been perched, climbing high into the sky as if someone shot an arrow straight into the air.

Ash and the rest of the team took several steps away from the river, not wanting to distract Horus from what he was about to do.

"Pay close attention" he told the team, making sure Horus never left his sight. This would be his first experience with Horus hunting, and wanted to see what the avian could do.

Ash wasn't sure what to expect, only ever previously having watched pidgeys and spearows hunt for magikarp, but watching Horus only cemented the fact in his head that the staravia was the superior flier.

Horus straightened out in the sky, far above the treetops and looked down from above, seemingly using his keen eyes to search for fish suitable for his consumption. With each passing second, his anticipation grew. Finally, Horus locked onto a target.

The avian dove vertically, accelerating to an unbelievable speed by using his enormous wings to propel him downward. About one fifty feet above the river, Horus drew his wings back, using a technique that Ash had only the luxury of seeing once before, stooping. Similar to a knife, Horus sliced through air using incredible speeds. Milliseconds before crashing into the river, he opened his wings to slow his decent, bringing his talons closer to his body to ready himself. Gracefully, he thrust his talons forward into the water, and pulled out the biggest magikarp Ash had seen today.

Horus shrieked in triumph, flying over to Ash before dropping the magikarp in front of him. The prize for a job well done.

"That was amazing!" He told the avian who had taken on an expression of smugness from the praise he was receiving from the others who had surrounded him upon his landing. He stroked several unkempt feathers back into place, a practice he was getting more accustomed to due to the vanity of his pokemon. Smiling as he made sure the tuft of the bird's plume was just right, he spoke once again "C'mon let's get these cleaned and then we can eat. It's been a long day."

They walked back to the campsite, everyone holding onto their own catch, and began preparing the fire. Instructing Typhaon to use a low powered ember to get the fire going, Ash pulled out his knife to begin cleaning the fish. The first time he had seen this done when he was younger, he had thrown up after watching his instructor do the same motions he was doing now, but he was older and far more practiced now. The meat split open easily as he found the opening to insert under the mouth to insert the knife. Slicing through the middle with one smooth motion, an easiness that came with years of practice, he opened the innards and washed out all of them. Once done, he started seasoning the fish with the large bags of sea salt and pepper his mother had given him (thank Arceus for access to bulk items).

He had to chastise Horus a couple times to not try and sneak a nibble in front of him. They were a team and most importantly, a family, they would all eat together and at the same time. He made sure to not cook his fish though, the stink eye he got when he nearly put it on the grating was enough of a warning. He knew they were all getting a bit cranky especially since the last bit of the sun's light started disappearing, but it all had been worth it as soon as he saw their eyes light up as they took that first bite. He watched all of them devour the fish so fast he got kind of scared that they would ask for seconds. But he smiled when Kratos finished first and just kind of laid there, too full to move.

All traces of sunlight had disappeared, leaving behind the subdued moon light and the light created by the flames. Tired from the long he decided it would be best to get some rest. As he got his sleeping pad and bag ready, he saw Typhaon throw some of the bigger logs he had cut earlier onto the fire. _Of course he wants a huge fire, he's a natural pyromaniac. _He climbed into the open bag and before he could close it, both Ares and Kratos made some noises.

"Alright get in here you big babies" he said with a grin on his face. They climbed into the bag with him, Kratos settling on the side closest to the fire and Ares on the side with no fire. They settled in to where he wouldn't be able to move much, with Typhaon settling in just as close when he laid down the fire-proof blanket. He saw Horus quietly take a position on the branch above them and Ash found himself extremely grateful to his pokemon for keeping him company and their protection of him. Slowly, he found himself dozing off, even with the odd noises here and there.

XXX

They followed that routine for the next couple of weeks as they made their way towards Pewter city. Each day Ash would wake up, fish, eat breakfast, follow the river towards the city, and train once they stopped moving for the day. Over the course of traveling they encountered a handful of trainers daily, and Ash challenged each and every one of them. He won most of the fights, although he lost to some kid with a drapion who had been scouring the forest for a teddiursa, and another who's scyther was much too fast to keep up with. Still he was happy enough with the results and had even started letting Kratos fight some first stage pokemon towards the end of their venture in the forest. Their training had produced great results and he couldn't be happier.

Typhaon had gotten the basics to metal claw down and had improved it by leaps and bounds. The boulders they used to practice on would be left with deep gash marks caused by his elongated steel like claws. For about a week and a half they had worked on getting his claws to take on the metallic properties, and when they finally accomplished their goal, it had been extremely satisfying. From there they had focused on getting him used to fighting with his claws more while maintaining the attack. At this point even Ares had to wary of Typhaons claws during their mock battles.

Growl was a _curious_ move. It was hard to train, requiring that Typhaon make intimidating noises using deep rumbling that played on a primal fear that most pokemon had. It was good to throw off or instill fear into some of his weaker opponents, but Ash found out against a battle-scarred linoone that it only sent those stronger than him into a fury. But his smokescreen was getting better. He was able to produce more of it faster now, and Ash had several plans in order to use it to conceal him on a battlefield. His bite was also getting stronger. Ash had worked hard to help strengthen his jaw in order to get a better bite. From helping to strengthen his jaw muscles by using his hand to force Typhaon to exert more force to open his jaw, massaging his jaw muscles, to letting him chew on stones. He also made sure to brush Typhaons (and the rest of his pokemons) teeth every other day, in order to keep them healthy and clean.

They had stopped working on Dragon Pulse for now. About halfway through the trip they had hit a wall in the usage of the attack. Typhaon couldn't condense the draconic energy to a sphere and maintain the energy long enough to send out the attack, and Ash hadn't wanted him to revert back to the subpar way they had been using it before, so they shelved the technique for now until Typhaon could harness and control the draconic energy more. But for every cloud there was a silver lining. They pivoted from learning the advanced move to one that was more manageable, in the form of dragon breathe.

The move had been a lot easier to learn than Ash had thought it would have been. All the practicing with dragon pulse had let Typhaon become more familiar with the energy, easing the transition. One of his parents must have been a dragon type, allowing for the once dormant drakkon cells to activate, easing his learning of the dragon fire. The attack itself was interesting to observe. At its weakest, it was hotter than even one of Typhaons full powered embers, and significantly more powerful. The downside being that Typhaon was still young, and couldn't hold the attack for long before becoming exhausted. The shades of purple, blue, and green and sparks of electricity that accompanied the flames were enthralling to watch. The attack was thicker than flames had any right to be, and Ash grinned at the upcoming opportunity to use the attack in a battle.

That didn't mean that Ash neglected to foster the power of Typhaons fire attacks. If Typhaon was going to become a mighty Charizard, then Ash needed to make sure he expanded and cultivated the abilities of his pyrosacs, enhancing the reaction of his ignition cells. Every day Ash made Typhaon go through a grueling regiment in order to increase his control and power of his fire. Each day they would end by having him use a full powered ember for as long as he could against a wall of boulders. And each day the fire grew hotter and the air surrounding the fire grew thicker and heavier. Ash was proud at how far his first partner had come and made sure to tell him every day (and if Ash spoiled him with food, berries, and head rubs, even better).

Horus had been the trickiest to train, since he was the only flying type he currently had, but Ash thinks he did a good job at it so far. The first few days had been a bit rough with training, since Horus always seemed more tired than the others until Ash came to two different realizations. The first being that Horus had newly evolved, no more than a month before Ash caught him by his own estimate. This led to the second realization being that Horus couldn't fly around 24/7. It had been a rookie mistake of his to assume that Horus would be alright simply flying around all the time, so Ash made sure to let him rest for a couple hours during the day to make sure he was in good shape. After that they started seeing more steady progression.

A lot of what they did was to work on his speed and how much power he could put behind his attacks. Ash continued to tie weights to him during their training sessions, when working on the birds speed, and made sure the bird could pivot in the air at a moment's notice to hit a moving opponent. Ash had made sure to strengthen his wings as well. If Horus was going to learn the more advanced moves of whirlwind, and later down the line Hurricane, then his wings needed to be able to thrust with enough force to produce the monstrous winds. Ash would tie Typhaon and Kratos together with rope, than have Horus try to blow them away with his gust every day. This helped his two terrestrial pokemon get used to fighting flying opponents and helped Horus strengthen his wings whenever they resisted getting blown away.

His Quick wing combo was getting better as his speed and wing strength increased. As various pidgeottos's and one unruly noctowl had learned. But Horus needed another range type move so Ash had decided that he would learn air cutter. It had been a bit tricky at first. But after watching a couple of videos they got it down. It took a fair amount of concentration, more than Horus was used to. But it packed enough of a punch to even be able to knock Ares back a bit if he wasn't prepared. Now they just needed to work on his mobility.

Tailwind, as Ash had learned, relied on the manipulation of air and wind currents in order to augment an avians speed. The egg move had proven exasperating for his friend to learn. As of right now, the only time they saw progress were on excessively windy days. Horus would fly against the wind in hopes of the miniscule improvement. So, it seemed the move was far from being mastered.

Ares and Kratos had been the two most difficult to train, for extremely different reasons. One had the instincts of a warrior, always watching, calculating, and enough power to make any pokemon rethink their strategy. The other had no instincts, was wide-eyed, and had a hard time with dodging. They made him understand why most people tended to become type-specialists, using dual types to cover any weaknesses. Training multiple types, while rewarding, demanded a lot out of a trainer. Different techniques and methodologies that couldn't be shared among the pokemon. And none showed this more clearly than the huge power gap between Ares and Kratos.

Ares lived up to the reputation of a pseudo-legendary. During training he was relentless and demanded he be pushed daily. There were now parts of Viridian Forest that had been left in shambles due to the intensity of their training.

Before they had left Viridian city, Ash had made sure to buy several items that would help with conditioning that had proven to be a blessing. Two 220 lb training sandbags (which he kept empty unless training), a couple of exceptionally resistant bands, a container of heavy-duty tennis balls, and a pack of agility cones. All his pokemon used the equipment during conditioning, but Ares was the one who used it the most often. Ash had to carefully plan all of his strength and agility exercises. Speed would do him no good, especially when he became a tyranitar, so they focused on him taking hits and weaving.

Most of the strength conditioning was straight forward. Ash always used logs and boulders since they were convenient and abundant. Log pulls, log drags, landmine presses with logs, boulder flipping, almost everything Ash could come up with to increase his strength. The sandbags were used to help with squatting and various bag exercises. Ash used the tennis balls in order to get him used to dodging attacks without having to move too much. And everyday, all his pokemon would spar with each other. But even with 2 hours of strength training _every day_, Ares demanded more.

Ares' geokinetic manipulation had considerably improved. Whereas harnessing the energy had only wielded the ability to create projectiles the size of tennis balls, better grasp on its handling had led to creating projectiles the size of bowling balls.. He had proven to be dangerously accurate with his rocks, pushing the dodging capabilities of Typhaon and Kratos, and even managing to repeatedly clip Horus's wings if the avian faltered for even a second.

Sandstorm had been astonishing to observe in person. Ash had only ever seen it in videos, and they did it no justice. He had been in awe as Ares' eyes had glowed white with an underlying power as he kicked up the tiny pebbles and sand around him into a violent and painful miniature storm. The drawback had been that the area he had encompassed was only about a ten-foot radius, and had he had only been able to keep it up for 30 seconds before becoming exhausted. It was a move that Ash had been sure to practice frequently, and the results were beginning to show. Ares couldn't expand it more than 12 ft yet, but he was now able to hold it for a minute, and continue fighting even after the draining move. It was something that he would gain more control of over time, and Ash couldn't wait.

Stone Edge had become something of a second nature to Ares, using it to bring down foes with pinpoint accuracy, or even as a barrier to force pokemon to follow the paths he desired. Even developing the attack enough to be able to curve and chase the pokemon if his opponent wasn't careful. Something an unsuspecting houndoom had painfully learned.

Ares had plenty of attacks, but unfortunately, the tyranitar line lacked any kind of recovery move and Ash didn't think that the move rest could fit into his fighting style, so that was out of the question. So they did the next best thing and worked on his defense. Iron Defense was a status move that hardened the exterior of a pokemon by increasing the density of their skin/ shell. The payoffs were that they became heavier for the time that the move was in use causing their speed to decrease, which wasn't really a problem for Ares. But the major drawback, as a pokemon that wasn't accustomed to its usage, was that he temporarily become immobile while concentrating on making his exterior hard enough to take on the defensive properties. It had been painful for Ares to learn the move, requiring that Typhaon use metal claw repeatedly and for Kratos to practice his slash while he focused on hardening his skin past normal levels. Ash had even needed to use a concoction of herbs and clay in order to heal the gashes caused by the daily attacks, but they had succeeded in their mission. Ares had finally managed to deflect one of Typhaons claws with just his skin and had not been able to penetrate it since.

All his pokemon demanded lots of time to train, something he had known would happen with having a charmander as a partner and something he had guessed correctly when he had obtained Ares and Kratos. It was why he had spent so much time in the forest, more so when considering that most trainers spent a week here tops. They only traveled about five hours a day, the rest of their time being dedicated to training. But Kratos demanded a dedication he never had to give before.

Kratos may never have trained, but he still held the latent potential that made any dragon a formidable foe. Ash was just glad that Typhaon and Kratos could simultaneously train strength and agility together. He would set up sticks in a straight line so they could weave in-between them, set up the cones so they could do slalom movements and different types of shuttles in order to turn at a moment's notice. Even an agility ladder so they could both work on their footwork. Ash always demonstrated what he wanted them to do first so they could copy him. Indeed, there were times he felt silly, especially when Ares would look over from whatever he was training in and snicker at him. But it was paying off.

He knew Typhaon would eventually evolve, but he was hoping some of his fast twitch muscle fibers would retain their memory and his agility would transfer over to his evolved forms. Kratos on the other hand, just like Ares, would always be landlocked on two feet. Agility and speed would be his best friends in any battle.

His reflexes were slowly improving, although Ash noticed that while Kratos and Typhaon got along the best, he seemed to improve the most when sparring against Ares, something he was grateful to the larvitar for. Ash had spent the last couple of weeks with Kratos working on mastering the easier half of his moveset, the most complicated moves being night slash and brick break.

It had been a struggle at first for Kratos to focus on gathering the dark energy to just his claws, a problem they fixed by first having Ares demonstrate dark pulse, as well as hit him in order to familiarize himself with the energy. Admittedly, that had been a last resort, but whoever had bred Kratos hadn't been too bothered in teaching him to how to harness the various energies of the attacks that he'd been born with. Still it had taken the better part of two weeks for him to successfully wield and do damage with the move.

While Ash had initially been against the idea of teaching Kratos another move, seeing as he already had too many to keep track of, he needed a defensive move until he was more capable of dodging. Harden was the only choice seeing as recovery moves for dragons were almost nonexistent. The differences between iron defense and harden were relatively simple once Ash had done enough research. Harden required that a pokemon tense up their muscles, causing the exterior to become tougher. Whereas iron defense demanded a pokemon divert extra energy to their exterior in order to toughen it up. It had been a bit more challenging than that but, in the end, it was a another move in Kratos' arsenal.

Overall, Ash couldn't have asked for a better trip through the forest. Avoiding the beedrill and pinsir colonies had been a small challenge made easier with Horus nearly dominating the skies (if you didn't count the occasional fearow or pidgeotto challenging him). He acted as a forward scout whenever they weren't training and did a fantastic job at it. Although trainers here in forest had done quite the number on his potion and antidote supplies. These bug type specialists were adamant in their resolve in becoming the next Bugsy or even Aaron. Something Ash found admirable since bugs weren't overly known as being powerful. These trainers relied on using status conditions and hit and run tactics in order to slowly wear down their adversaries. Tactics that worked quite on most trainers until they learned how to work around that strategy.

The only negative thing he could say about the trip was how grimy he felt. Dirt that stuck to his skin no matter how hard he scrubbed. Mud and soil cemented to his cloths like leeches, refusing to come out even after multiple washes in the river. He found himself overjoyed whenever it rained, although that meant his only companion was Kratos, since the rest couldn't stand the wet weather.

XX

After cross checking the two maps and orienting himself using several landmarks and compass, he determined that they were a half day's walk from the stone city, supposing the path to the city was close to their current location. They could reach it by midday if he returned Ares and pushed their pace a bit harder than usual.

The gradual rays of sun began to illuminate the forest interior, giving him some light as he tore down his camp and his pokemon finished up breakfast. He informed them of his plan, to which they seemed indifferent, and began heading out. The dirt path to the city wasn't far off from their campsite, and they reached it within an hour. Finally, he could feel a sense of relief as he imagined the shower facilities afforded to him at the pokemon center, as well as some cooked meals that didn't involve fish.

Hearing Horus release a warning chirp, he squinted to see what could have possibly cause the bird to alert him. Horus usually only made that noise when the bird spotted trainers, but he spotted no one. Still, he trusted Horus, the pokemon having been invaluable during his time in the forest so he warned Typhaon and Kratos to be on the lookout.

As he continued down the path, a red figure began to appear in his eyeline. It was odd. It seemed to be an armored clad person sitting in the seiza position on the left side of the dirt path. After closing the distance between them, the person began to stand up once Ash got within several feet.

Ash had never seen anyone wear samurai armor before. Although the teens armor seemed to be made from cheaper materials than any of the pictures he had ever seen. The cuirass was constructed of two solid plates (front and back) held together by leather shoulder straps. The top was painted a bright red, the bottom a jet-black separated by a thin line of gold. The teens kabuto (helmet) was simple, all the metal plates finished with a black patina, the maedate resembling a jagged V.

Now that Ash could see into the frontal opening, it shocked him to see a guy around his age.

The teen reached down, grabbed the tsuka of his katana with his right arm, unsheathing the dangerously sharp blade from the saya. He took a traditional fighting stance (from what Ash could assume) then lunged forward, raising the katana above his head

"Typhaon, break that blade with Metal Claw!"

Typhaon charged, ready to protect his trainer.

The armor-clad teen brought the katana down, slicing through the air.

A loud metallic screech reverberated as the two attacks met, sending a jolt through Ash's system that caused him to flinch. Opening his eyes, he watched as Typhaon and Kratos tackled the teen, who yelped as he was forced onto his back. Ash walked over, irritated that this stranger would dare attack with a lethal weapon.

"Impudent child! Take control of your pokemon! Get them off me!" cried the Samurai. Indignation clearly visible on his face.

"My pokemon _are _under control" replied Ash, his voice laced with anger. "Now, give me one good reason as to why I shouldn't report you to the police."

"I was simply challenging you to a pokemon battle" he huffed in annoyance. "This is the way we demand to test an adversary's strength in my clan."

"Well…" Ash contemplated for a second on the right words to use, "that's _fucking_ _stupid._"

A flash of anger crossed the teens face "You merely do not understand tradition, you uneducated simpleton."

Typhaon growled at the boy's belligerent attitude, reminding the child that _they _were in control here, not him.

Coming to the realization that the situation necessitated he play nice, Samurai decided a change of approach would serve him best.

"Look," Samurai said, putting his hands up, motioning that he meant no further harm. "I lost to two trainers from Pallet Town several weeks ago. They both proceeded to inform me that there was one more trainer that hailed from the town, who was in the possession of a charmander. I have camped here for two weeks, eagerly awaiting your arrival."

Ash felt this whole situation was a tad ridiculous, still, he told Typhaon and Kratos to let the guy up.

Samurai carelessly stood, wiping the dirt off his back, mumbling under his breathe at the humiliation at being brought down so easily.

Ash crossed his arms, his patience already fading. "So, what'll it be?"

"A one vs one battle" responded Samurai. "And this time, I will restore my honor"

Ash rolled his eyes at the drama queen. "Let's just get this over with."

Samurai leered at Ash, throwing out a pokeball with a bit more intensity than what was called for. As the bright incandescent light faded, Ash began to make out the pokemons features.

"Ok, definitely did not expect the pinsir." He looked at the stag beetle pokemon with a bit more caution. Typhaon stepped forward, his tail flaming up a bit more as he hungrily anticipated the battle. "Sorry bud, I know you're eager, but this would be too easy for you. Let Kratos take this one, he needs the experience."

Disappointing countenance aside, Typhaon gave a nod of encouragement to the unseasoned dragon.

Kratos moved forward, his apprehension plainly visible to everyone. He looked back at his trainer, who gave him a small smile and a nod, before turning to face the stag beetle in front of him.

"What kind of pokemon is that?" asked Samurai, obviously curious at the foreign dragon.

"Don't worry, you'll find out soon enough." Ash said dismissively.

"Kratos use Dual Chop, followed by brick break. Keep it on the defensive and be weary of its pincers." He knew that this might be a bit more difficult for Kratos, but he wanted his pokemon to face challenges that would help them grow, not just ones that could easily be overcome.

"Pinsir show that buffoon we will not be taken down so easily. Vise Grip!"

Pinsir lowered its head, snapping it's claws together as it tried to intimidate Kratos, slowly trudging forward. It moved too slowly to be of major threat to Kratos, who was rapidly approaching the pokemon.

He sidestepped the pincers, and cross chopped his opponent with his glowing cyan covered hands. The attack sent the pinsir flying several feet where it landed on its back. It looked quite pathetic as it struggled to get right-side up. Kratos never gave it that chance.

Kratos rushed forward, bringing his glowing right paw down on the midsection of the surprised pokemon. Ash knew brick break was a powerful move, but he never expected it to fracture the pokemons hard carapace on his first use. The pinsir must have really been inexperienced, that, or Samurai must not have trained it very well.

"You dare attack while my pokemon is defenseless! That's dishonorable!" yelled Samurai.

Shrugging his shoulders, Ash felt no need to defend himself. It was a pokemon battle, honor was extremely subjective and had no place in a match.

"Kratos, use focus energy then brick break one last time, finish it off.!" shouted Ash.

Focus Energy was an interesting move. It required the user's adrenal glands to pump out excess adrenaline, which was then directed internally to whichever body part the pokemon needed. The excess chemicals were converted into kinetic energy, which then would be completely expended on the one attack, allowing the pokemon to temporarily break its own limitations to deal additional damage. In this case, In this case, Kratos directed the excess to his left tusk, and stabbed the downed pokemon, managing to pierce and completely shatter the frontside of the pincer's midsection where the structural integrity had already been compromised.

Ash winced a bit as he heard the pinsir let out a shriek of pain. Kratos had overwhelmed the pinsirs pain threshold, causing it to faint.

Kratos was panting heavily. Training and sparring were one thing, but his pokemon still wasn't used to the adrenaline rush that came with participating in real pokemon battles, He observed as a red beam enveloped the body of the fallen pokemon, returning it back to the pokeball whence it came.

Samurai leered at him, clearly displeased with the outcome of the match. "That was completely uncalled for. You should have stopped the match before my pokemon took all that damage."

"Same could be said for you" said Ash, amused at the thought the he should have been the one to take the loss and call off the match. "On top of being young, your pokemons training is obviously inadequate. It's not my fault my pokemon outclassed yours."

"Don't you dare tell me how to raise my pokemon! Come back in a few months and I'll crush you and your pokemon!" With that the samurai rushed past him, marching back into the forest.

"Well that was just odd, don't you think?" he asked his pokemon. He heard a several grunts of agreement come out of them. Looking at the pokemon who had just claimed victory, he noticed that Kratos seemed to be staring at the direction the samurai had gone.

"Hey, you did great, ok bud" Ash kneeled so he could look into the eyes of the young dragon. "I don't care what that jerk says, and neither should you. You did exactly what I asked, and you exceeded my expectations. Be proud." Grabbing the back of Kratos' head, he brought the young dragon closer to him. He touched his forehead to his pokemons, both closing their eyes so they could bask in the moment. "I want you to remember that no matter what, I will _always _be proud of you."

XXX

Pewter city, _The Foundation of Kanto, _was breathtaking in a way few of the other larger cities could claim. Being located at the base of the Arborvern Mountain Range, the once small village had flourished in the past century. Having easy access to a diverse selection of rock-type pokemon and close proximity to the abundance of resources the mountains provided, mining and quarries had led to a now thriving city.

An abundance of building materials in the immediate vicinity, and at low costs, had proven a boon to the township. Any and all buildings were now constructed from the various stones available, drawing architectural inspiration from the Alto Mare in the Johto Region, rejecting the aesthetics of steel and glass that the rest of the cities adopted. Master stone/brick masons and terrazzo workers flocked to the city from different regions, bringing an influx of professions and pokemon previously not found in the region.

It was astonishing to see the reverence the city held for rock/ground type pokemon. Streets named after them, accommodations made for some of the larger specimen such as onix and rhydons, a massive grooming facility found downtown. Lots of the ornamentation on buildings even taken artistic inspirations from the folktales of old. But the truly impressive sight was the Pewter City Gym.

Constructed near the middle of the city, it was the only building that stood alone, having been erected on several acres set aside for the gym. A stone pathway wormed its way through the sprawling grounds to the enormous rectangular building. Marble statues of pokemon, with small descriptions underneath, lined the pathway. The monumental rectangular stone building itself resembling the late Etruscan temples. A solid stone podium elevated the building several feet, giving it an imposing aura. Made from large white granite bricks, it ran longer than it was wide. Its colossal size meant to be a symbol of Pewter City's newfound power and position.

Gyms and gym leaders played an important role in the major townships. Each one acting as an extension of the Pokemon league, serving as role models for aspiring trainers, educators, and peacekeepers. Most served as mediators between community leaders, and had the final authority when it came to dictating matters of extreme importance. All were a force to be reckoned with. Not only did they have the authority to back them, their pokemon were some of the most powerful in their respective territories. So much so that an unofficial title had been given to the gym leaders across the region, _The Eight Immortals._ It was an honor to be one of the few to hold this title.

Brocks father, Flint, had been the first gym leader for the stone city. Having been nominated for the position after defeating over two hundred participants in a city-wide tournament nearly two decades ago. He'd gone on to defeat the Viridian Forest Gym leader in a _Dual of Champions_, both using their strongest pokemon in a 10v10 pokemon battle to determine who would go home with privilege of being the predominant gym in their respective territories. Stories tell that Flint had even turned down a proposition to be a member of the Elite Four, preferring to focus on his home and family.

After serving Pewter City faithfully for years, Flint's wife made the man step down from his position following a near-fatal heart attack. After which, his eldest son Brock had stepped up to take over the mantle.

Brock, a prodigy in his own right, crushed all the opposition he faced towards his succession. After which the transition had been smooth. Brock continued the practice of educating trainers and acting as a mentor towards all who sought him out. Which is how Ash had found himself having to wait nearly 3 days after reaching Pewter to even have a match with the man.

Unbeknownst to Ash, Brock enjoyed hosting seminars several times a year. He allowed trainers, enthusiasts, and researchers to learn what they could from the rock type master. During the days he hosted the seminar Brock normally wouldn't accept any challenges, but Ash had gotten lucky. After bribing the kid sitting at the receptionist desk (what kid demands 50 credits just to page a man?) Brock took some pity on the trainer and told him to come back at 1 p.m Friday. Supposedly, the gym leader liked keeping his schedule light on Fridays, arranging to finish the last part of the seminar around noon.

Currently, he was sitting in the stands of the main battlefield, observing. He had walked in towards the end of an enthusiastic demonstration of a Kabutops, so Forest told him to wait until Brock finished the Q &A portion. Ash hadn't known that Brock had been entrusted with the fossil pokemon, though it made sense. The gym leader had an intrinsic understanding of rock pokemon, as well as knowledge that his father and travels had passed onto him.

Most of the attendees were dressed in either casual clothing, or gear that gave off the impression that they were about to go hiking. Even Brock was dressed in an orange long sleeve, olive green cargo pants, and brown hiking boots. But there was one man hanging in the back, writing down notes in rapt attention to Brock speaking, who was vastly overdressed. Silver styled hair, charcoal black suit, royal purple dress vest and a white-collar shirt layered underneath. A pair of black leather oxfords that looked extremely expensive. Though the gentleman's accessories seemed a bit too much, sporting a pompous (in Ash's opinion) red cravat and several rings on each finger. His whole ensemble seemed to be made from the finest materials available. The man looked no older than thirty, and looked rather familiar, but Ash couldn't place the face.

"Finally," he muttered two hours later as he watched the gym leader start dismissing the group. One by one they all thanked Brock for his time, and proceeded towards the only exit in the room. Walking down the steps, he noticed that Brock seemed to be unaware of his presence, instead being enthralled in a fervent conversation with the silver-haired man. Trying not to be rude by interrupting, he waited a couple minutes until it was obvious that they could go on all day.

"Ahem"

Brock turned, surprised at the interruption, "Oh sorry about that"- he paused and thought for moment- "Ash was it?"

Ash nodded his head yes as he approached the pair, briefly looking at the man standing next to Brock, before looking back at the gym leader.

"Sorry about the wait. People generally like to ask me all sorts of questions since they have me readily available." He glanced at his acquittance, "I hate to ask this of you, but is there any way we can postpone this till Monday?" He asked Ash apologetically. "I would like to get some drinks with my friend here."

Ash gave him a small smile, knowing Brock wouldn't like his answer. "I can't. My pokemon have been training hard and after nearly a month, I want them to have this weekend off, so they can enjoy it."

Brock sighed, "Well at least you take care of them. That's always encouraging to hear from a young trainer like yourself. Forest!" He yelled. "Come out and referee!"

"Steven, you don't mind waiting a bit, do you?" Asked Brock.

_Steven? I remember the name fitting a guy with his description. But I can't remember from where._

"No, not at all." The man named Steven gave Brock a sincere smile. "As a matter of fact, it's been years since I witnessed a gym battle for myself, having completed the circuit so long ago. This should prove entertaining if nothing else." With that, Steven went and sat at the highest rung the stands could seat, choosing to observe from above

"First things first, do you have any badges?" Brock asked over his shoulder as he walked over to a panel containing several pokeballs.

"None, _yet" _responded Ash, knowing what was about to come.

"None?" Asked Brock his hand stilled over a pokeball that he had clearly been expecting to need. "You realize what it means to skip over the bug gym, right?"

Ash nodded his head, hand holding a tight grip onto Typhaons pokeball, grateful for the warmth exuding from the ball that gave him the confidence boost he needed.

"Once you go down this road, there's no going back. You won't be able to challenge any of the minor gyms for badges anymore. Either you complete the circuit without losing three times to any of the major gyms _at all_, or you don't enter the conference next year." Brock warned. "I highly recommend going back to earn the Chrysalis badge from Yoshimoto. It's easier for novices to get into the conference that way."

"I don't want easier," Ash spoke with conviction in his voice, "I want a guaranteed spot in the top 32."

A slight chuckle escaped from Brocks mouth "You're from Pallet town, correct? Tell Professor Oak that he needs to visit more often if he can get his students fired up this much. You're the third challenger I've had of his repeat those words. I need to find a way to inspire the trainers around here to aim just as high." With that, he pressed several buttons on the panel, and out popped out another tray, this time containing great balls.

"This battle will be two vs two, no substitutions. Once you recall your pokemon, they're done. Do you understand?"

"I do."

"Are you Ready?"

_Not at all. _His nervousness was slowly trying to overwhelm him. His heart was speeding up and he could feel small tingles throughout his whole body. But he wasn't about to be deterred. He let out a small breath of air, looking over the landscape, carefully observing the battlefield and terrain, trying to determine what sort of strategy would work to his advantage.

"Go Typhaon!"

"A charmander huh?" Brock's left eyebrow shot up, a small smirk graced his face in plain amusement. "It's been a while since I've seen one of those. Rock types generally hold a considerable advantage over fire types. Are you sure?"

"He's my starter, no way he isn't participating in our first gym battle," responded Ash.

Brock smiled, "Loyalty, if nothing else, is admirable. But don't hold it against him if he loses. "Go Lycanroc!"

The bright white light receded, leaving a pokemon who's pre-evolution only recently began gaining popularity in the Kanto region as trade and travel restrictions were eased with the Alola islands. A quadrupedal canine covered in white and wheat colored fur with four jagged stones jutting out of its shaggy mane. Sapphire blue eyes honed onto Typhaons presence, muscles rippling underneath its coat in anticipation of what was to come. It barked out a challenge as it readied itself, awaiting Brock's commands.

"You're using a pokemon that came from outside of Kanto?" Asked Ash. Recognizing most pokemon from sight and name wasn't too difficult a task. When choosing to become a trainer, it became your job to research every pokemon out there, even if they weren't natives.

"The league decided to open up to almost all the regions for this conference. Both the chairman and the champion are pushing for Kanto to be the premier league for the entire world. As such, all the gym leaders will begin the initiative of using a variety of pokemon." Brock clarified. "Expect to see and battle more trainers who use non-native pokemon. Now let's get started, shall we?"

Time seemed to freeze, as both contestants sized up each other and their pokemon.

Typhaons fierce stare met his foes piercing eyes, refusing to be intimidated by the larger adversary. The flames on his tail expanding in excitement in the presence of a true challenge

Brock stood strong, tall, and imposing. A striking visage of a master amongst his element. It would have deterred most trainers, fortunately, Ash wasn't most trainers.

Nodding his head yes, Brock gave him no more time to ready himself, instead taking the initiative.

"Accelerock! Take him out!" The lycanroc barked in confirmation, and bolted forward. It's body quickly closing the distance, surprising both Typhaon and Ash with its speed.

"Block it!" Ash yelled.

Typhaon managed to cross his arms just as the lycanroc rammed into him. The force of the attack sending Typhaon flying, crashing into one of the boulders surrounding them.

Ash knew Typhaon would stand up, sparring and mock battles with Ares had led the charmander to grow more accustomed to hard hits like that. The part that worried him was their opponents speed. The various strategies they had planned had all been made with the assumption that the pokemon Brock chose would have been slow, as that was a natural drawback to most rock types.

Lycanroc on the other hand was infinitely faster than Typhaon. There was no way to contend with the canines' speed. But they could blind it.

"Still standing? At least he can take a hit." Brock said with some admiration. "But that won't be enough. Accelerock!"

"Smokescreen, cover the field." Ash ordered. Typhaon had been thrown far enough that his opponent wouldn't be able to hear his commands. "Chase it down with metal claw, aim for its hind legs."

From his jaws burst a pitch-black cloud of rolling smoke that rapidly blanketed the field, concealing almost everything in sight.

The dog barreled into the smoke, and for a moment Ash held his breathe. Then he heard it howl, confused as to where its target was. He had given his location away.

"Now!" Shouted Ash, hopeful to take advantage of its mistake.

"Jump onto that stone on your left" Brock shouted, while unaware of Ashs intentions, he was a veteran of numerous battles. He would not be so easily outplayed

Lycanroc launched out of the black haze, landing on the tip of a stone that hadn't been obscured. Typhaon didn't hesitate. Trailing from behind, he hacked at its hindlegs from its blind spot.

The lycanroc yelped, having clearly been taken by surprise. Quickly jumping onto another pillar, it faced and scanned the obscuring veil, attempting to track where its enemy had escaped to. Typhaon gave no quarter, once again jumping from the rear and slashing at its back legs.

The dog stumbled for a second, before regaining its footing and leaping away onto another pillar.

"Enough of this" Brock muttered. "Sandstorm, blow away this smoke" thundered Brock, growing tired of Typhaons hit and run tactics.

Lycanrocs crystal blue eyes took on a familiar white hue, kicking up dirt and small pebbles, forming a cloud rapidly expanding in a clockwise motion to encompass the entire arena. The storm grew stronger with each passing second, an ascending spiral that dispersed the opaque smog as it extended towards the ceiling. And just as fast as it had appeared, the mighty storm vanished. Leaving behind a ragged- looking opponent that was gasping for air, and his starter covered in superficial wounds and cuts.

_This doesn't look good. I need to end it soon._

"Rock fang, end this" Brock ordered.

The canine howled into the sky before charging forward once again, this time its speed harshly hindered by the minor wounds on its rear legs. As it closed the distance, it simultaneously started using geokinetic energy to form and throw small rocks the size of softballs, while coating its jaws in electricity.

"Destroy them with metal claw! The second you see an opening use Dragon breathe!" The words rushed out his mouth.

Typhaons snarled at his opponent, flexing his sharp claws to once again take on the metallic properties. He slashed at the incoming balls of stones, having to take continues steps back as destroying the stones still pelted him with small pebbles.

One more stone ball was thrown when the distance between the two was ten feet, before he lunged at Typhaon, jaws wide open and cackling with electricity.

"Close his jaw!" He yelled desperately.

Typhaon read his adversary perfectly, ducking underneath its mouth while reaching up to grab its mane with both claws. Tightening his grip, he swung his enemy downwards with all his strength, tossing the dog onto the ground like a ragdoll.

The lycanroc yowled in pain as it hit the floor, carried away by its own momentum. Typhaon never gave it the chance to stand back up.

He blasted the downed opponent with his draconic flames, engulfing its body and scorching parts of its coat until he was out of breath. A red beam recalled the felled pokemon, signaling their victory.

"YES" Ash shouted, pumping a fist into the air for their victory. Typhaon roared in victory while bellowing a large cloud of fire into the air.

"You did better than I expected" admitted the surprised gym leader. "Most trainers always get thrown for a loop when I bring out lycanroc, for this I applaud you. Though, I think you'll find my next pokemon just as challenging." Retrieving a great ball from his belt, he flicked it into the air once before tossing it out onto the field. "Go Onix!"

The massive stone serpent landed with a loud thud, causing the floor to tremble upon its arrival. It looked smaller than most of its kin which in and of itself was an understatement. Its enormous stature still overshadowed the charmander and for a second, Ash considered recalling his starter. Typhaon however had other ideas.

Even injured, he snarled in a challenging tone, surprising both onix and Brock with his impudence.

"I think you'll find Typhaon has a bit more fight in him," Ash declared with a grin. "Dragon breathe!" he ordered, unwilling to let Brock make the first move again.

Brock grinned "Nice try but that won't work twice. Use Iron tail!"

Typhaon released a torrent of draconic flames, only to be stopped by the Onix using its massive tail to swing down and cleave the attack in two. He rolled out of the way before the tail reached him, narrowly avoiding the attack.

Seeing an opening, Ash changed his game plan, "Climb on top of that thing and attack with metal claw!

Onix had barely begun lifting its tail before Typhaon leaped on top, scaling up several of the spherical segments comprising its body. Unable to get higher than a third of the way up, he viciously hacked away at its body, creating multiple lacerations that caused it to bellow in pain.

"Slam him against the Pillars" snapped Brock.

"Jump off" roared Ash, but it was too late.

Onix's momentum and weight carried through the movement, slamming Typhaon and reducing the pillar to dust on impact. Typhaon yowled in pain before falling onto the floor, having fainted on impact. A red beam withdrew the charmander from the fight. The score was now even.

"You did great bud" Ash whispered with pride in his voice." Now rest up, we'll take it from here." He placed Typhaons ball back into the first clip and grabbed the second one. "We got this," he spoke confidently to the ball before throwing it out.

Surprise flickered across Brock's face. "So, _you're_ the trainer Giovanni cautioned me about. He informed me that a trainer was in route with a larvitar on his team, and I'll be perfectly candid, you're one of the few rookies he's ever spoken well of. Nevertheless"- his eyes narrowed, speaking in a stern tone that brokered no argument - "I _will_ be examining him afterwards. As a gym leader it's my duty to make sure all pokemon are well cared for. Larvitars exceptionally so, given their boundless potential for devastation."

The thought of Ares possibly being taken away irritated the young man. "He's part of my family, I would never harm him."

"Noted. Now, let's finish what we started." And their battle began anew.

XX

In the grandstands sat the lone spectator, left leg crossed over his right while with both hands resting atop his knee, absolutely captivated by the happenings on the battlefield.

"My my what a fascinating turn of events," Steven cheerfully uttered. "And to think Brock was hesitant to show us his own, apprehensive of its reaction since you bested the beast the last time we faced it."

"_The fledgling on the battlegrounds is too inexperienced and young to be of any entertainment" _declared a refined baritone voice inside Stevens mind.

"True enough, yet seldom does a pokemon with such latent abilities turn up in the hands of an amateur."

The opening salvos of dragon breathe and dark pulse collided halfway between both pokemon, neither attack yielding to the other, exhibiting how evenly matched the two rock types were.

"_He is strong for one so young" _

"Not just strong" countered Steven, observing as the larvitar in question expertly utilized stone edge to keep the larger foe at bay. "It's skillfully circumventing its own shortcomings by not allowing his opponent to use its superior size to its advantage."

"_The human is competent."_

"The charmander proved he was, the larvitar is merely solidifying the fact."

A guttural shriek filled the air. The larvitar had succeeded in cracking the exoskeleton where the charmander had previously damaged it

"_We ought to monitor his progress" _proposed the voice. _"It's been eons since the we ran into a human that held promise."_

"Yes, yes I think we shall."

Xx

"Go Underground. Get it off balance" instructed Brock. Onix plowed through the floor. Tremors shooting through the earth as it charged its way underneath the surface.

"Iron Defense, the second that thing shows it's ugly mug you knock it back down with Iron tail" bellowed Ash.

Ares smacked his tail against the ground, his way of letting Ash know he understood. Crossing his arms in an x shape across his body, a slight tinge of silver enveloped the pokemon.

The ground exploded upwards from underneath Ares, the onix bursting out, attempting to end things once and for all. It wasn't enough.

Ares waited a few seconds, using gravity and the extra density from the move to gain some more momentum as he fell back down towards the earth. Releasing himself from the restrictive move, grateful to his opponent for the unintended advantageous position, he flipped forward, squeezing every bit of driving power into the tail that now cracked the skull of the onix. An agonizing screech reverberated throughout the gym.

Onix's upper body crashed back into the crater it had erupted from, its immense weight scattering the rocks and sand around it.

"That was impressive Ash" confessed the astonished gym leader. "It's been a long time since a trainer effortlessly defeated Onix"

"I can't take all the credit" Ash admitted. Fishing a sitrus berry from his pack, he held it out to Ares who scarfed it down without hesitation.

Brock made his way from across the gym. Bending down once he reached them, he began inspecting Ares. Lifting his arms and scrutinizing the ports on Ares' body, as well as his flower shaped tail and fused scales that covered his belly.

Ares needed to be continuously bribed with berries to even let brock that stay near him.

Standing back up, he gave Ares one last one over before addressing Ash.

"He looks to be in excellent shape, though his gas ports look like they need to be used more regularly. I'll make sure to get you my notes on raising larvitars before you leave. It'll come in handy since information about them in general is rather scarce. Oh, that reminds me."

Brock held out a small leather case for Ash to take. "That contains the Boulder Badge, as well as the Earth Power TR."

"Earth power? Your league wiki said you normally hand out the Rock Tomb TM?"

"I normally do, but that would be pointless since larvitars can learn that move with ease. No, if you want to harness the full power of a Tyranitar, it needs to learn control. This move will lead you down the right path if you develop it correctly."

"Thank you," Ash responded, still in disbelief that they had won their first gym battle.

A loud and vociferous applause erupted from their right, bringing Ash's attention back to Brock's mysterious guest who was walking towards them.

"Gentleman, that was a remarkable match. Every moment was tense and kept me on the edge of my seat, wondering who was going to come out on top. Although I did expect our resident rock master to win, considering he was grumbling about not losing for nearly a month before you arrived. I for one was pleasantly surprised to have been proven wrong."

Brock merely shrugged his shoulders "He caught me off guard with the larvitar, and honestly, I don't think I could have done any better even had I known which pokemon he was going to use. Either way Steven, you're being rude by not introducing yourself."

"Ah" gasped Steven. "I'm terribly sorry where are my manners."

The silver haired man stepped towards Ash, extending his hand, a warm smile gracing his face "I don't believe we've met young man. My Name is Steven Stone, and it is a pleasure to make your acquittance."

**A/N So I know I promised that I would be updating this story about every two weeks, but that was before the true insanity of 2020 made its presence known. I've gone through a lot of ups and downs throughout these last couple months, but I feel like I'm finally back in a place where I can regularly update this story. Every update will only be about once a month, and I'm aiming to release the next chapter around the 29****th****. If there's any questions please feel free to leave it in the reviews or dm me and I will try my best to answer you.**


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